Preamble

The House—after the Adjournment on 14th April, 1960, for the Easter Recess—met at half-past Two o'clock.

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

SAINT STEPHEN BRISTOL (BURIAL GROUNDS ETC.) BILL

SOMERSET COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

CITY OF LONDON (GUILD CHURCHES) BILL (By Order)

Consideration, as amended, deferred till Tuesday next.

LANCASHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL (INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ETC.) BILL (By Order)

Consideration, as amended, deferred till Thursday.

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE CORPORATION BILL (By Order)

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL (FULLBRIDGE, MALDON) BILL [Lords] (By Order)

ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Tuesday next.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF WORKS

Members' Correspondence (Dictation Facilities)

Mrs. Castle: asked the Minister of Works whether he will provide the equipment for a central dictation system in the Palace of Westminster for the use of hon. Members.

The Minister of Works (Lord John Hope): I cannot add anything to the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House during the debate on accommodation on 31st March, when he said that he would discuss matters such as this with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mrs. Castle: Is the Minister aware that he is proposing to embark upon an expenditure of some £250,000 on structural alterations under the roof, a part of which is to increase secretarial accommodation, whereas if we had a central dictation system it might actually reduce the amount of individual secretarial accommodation required? Will the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, go into the matter very carefully from the point of view of cost and the convenience of hon. Members before he proceeds any further with his more expensive plan?

Lord John Hope: I am sure my right hon. Friend will take note of what the hon. Lady has said, and I personally will bring it to his attention.

Mrs. Castle: Whilst thanking the Minister for that further reply, may I ask him if in due course he will please make a report to the House on his findings in the matter?

Lord John Hope: That is asking me to report on these discussions for which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is himself taking responsibility. Therefore, I do not think I can go as far as that.

Mr. Nabarro: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that if the Ministry of Works provided dictating machines it would be far cheaper in economy of accommodation than seeking to provide additional accommodation so that Members may dictate their correspondence in one place and then the stenographer goes off to type it in another? Will not my right hon. Friend mechanise the House of Commons and increase its productivity, which he advocates elsewhere?

Lord John Hope: My hon. Friend's productivity goes very well without mechanisation.

Royal Parks (Speed Limit)

Sir R. Nugent: asked the Minister of Works whether he is yet in a position to make a statement regarding the speed limit in the Royal Parks.

Lord John Hope: Yes, Sir. I propose to lay amending Regulations under the Parks Regulation Acts to raise the speed limit to 30 m.p.h. throughout the Royal Parks.

Sir R. Nugent: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this decision will be generally welcomed because it will bring the law into conformity with general practice with regard to the movement of vehicles in the parks and because this is the best way to obtain general respect for the law by motorists using the parks?

Lord John Hope: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I hope, indeed, that this will be so.

Abingdon Street Site

Sir H. Kerr: asked the Minister of Works whether he is yet in a position to make a statement on the future of the Abingdon Street site.

Lord John Hope: Yes, Sir. I am very glad to announce that it is proposed to

preserve this site as an open space, thus opening up a splendid new vista of Westminster Abbey, the Jewel Tower and the Palace of Westminster.

Sir H. Kerr: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this statement will be greeted both with relief and satisfaction?

Royal Wedding

Mr. Lipton: asked the Minister of Works what expenditure has been incurred by his Department for the Royal Wedding on 6th May next; and what was the expenditure for the Royal Wedding in 1947.

Lord John Hope: The expenditure to be incurred by my Department for the Royal Wedding on 6th May is estimated at about £25,000; £6,000 was spent for the Royal Wedding in 1947.

Mr. Lipton: We tender loyal congratulations, but is not the disparity between these two amounts rather odd? Will the Minister agree that, with the £25,000 on decorations and the £40,000 to be spent on the "Britannia" during her cruise, the Government are overdoing things a bit and causing a certain amount of divided opinion and, in some quarters, critical comment?

Lord John Hope: I must confine myself to what I am responsible for, but I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that that sort of easy comparison with 1947 is really very unfair. Things were very different in those days immediately after the war.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Does the poor old Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has been severely attacked from the benches opposite for not reducing public expenditure, know about this? Is it not setting a bad example to other spending Departments when we are told that public economy is very badly needed at the present time?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mrs. Castle: Surely the Minister should reply to my hon. Friend. Surely the Minister owes the House some fulley explanation of why this expenditure is being quadrupled, and more than quadrupled, on this occasion? I cannot remember any great dissatisfaction with the preparations in 1947. Surely there will be more dissatisfaction with the excessive expenditure now?

Lord John Hope: There may well not have been dissatisfaction in 1947 because conditions were so different, and were understood to be very different. I should have thought that, taking one thing with another, one could perfectly well say that one would hope that there would not be dissastisfaction now, a great many years later, when things are so different.

Mr. Jay: Is the Minister suggesting that the cost of living has risen sevenfold since 1947?

Avebury Excavations

Mr. Fletcher: asked the Minister of Works what plans he has for undertaking the restoration and preservation of the prehistoric Stone Circle and avenue at Avebury.

Lord John Hope: On the advice of the Ancient Monuments Board for England, a limited excavation to investigate the North Setting and its relationship to the Circle will be carried out this summer. When its results are known, I shall consult the Ancient Monuments Board about further operations.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Firemen (Widows' Pensions)

Mr. Hannan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware that when the lives of firemen are lost in the course of duty the pension payable to widows is equal to one-third of the deceased husband's wage; and if he will take steps to increase the proportion to one-half.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John Maclay): The widow of a regular fireman killed on duty receives a special pension of at least one-third of her husband's average pensionable pay, including any national insurance award. The Joint Pensions Committee of the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council and the Scottish Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council is looking into the question of firemen's widows' pension and I must await the results of this inquiry before I can consider the matter any further.

Mr. Hannan: I appreciate that answer, but will the Secretary of State for Scotland bear in mind that hitherto pen-

sions and conditions of firemen and policemen have been looked on as approximating one to the other? Since the widows of policemen killed on duty receive a half-pension, will the Minister bear that in mind when the Report comes before him?

Mr. Maclay: I am aware of what the hon. Gentleman has said, but I think he will agree with me that I must await the Report from the Council.

Prisons (Building Programme)

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will delay the building of more prisons till he has considered the possibility of discriminating among prisoners, with a view to the extension of a parole system which can more usefully and economically employ suitable types of convicted prisoners outside prison walls.

Mr. Maclay: The prison building programme for the next few years, which I described in reply to a Question from the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) on 12th April, does not include provision for any new prison for convicted prisoners.
I shall consider whether larger numbers of prisoners can be selected for training in open conditions and whether the existing parole system under which selected prisoners go to outside work as a final stage in their training can be extended.

Mr. Woodburn: In view of the many types of persons who become convicts, and the general assumption that they are all violent criminals, would it not be wise to set up some organisation which could examine this whole problem of the different types of prisoner to see whether, to avoid cluttering people up in these cells, there could not be some more open-air treatment of them, either on parole or under varying degrees of supervision?

Mr. Maclay: As I indicated in my Answer, I am very conscious of this problem and we are trying to examine carefully what more can be done in the direction to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

Agriculture

Mr. Hannan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is satisfied with the present method of subsidising agriculture; and what changes he proposes to make.

Mr. Maclay: The Government are satisfied that the present system of agricultural guarantees is the most suitable method of discharging their obligations under the Agriculture Acts of 1947 and 1957. The arrangements are kept under constant review, particularly for the purposes of the Annual Review and determination of guarantees, and the Government have no further changes in mind at the moment.

Mr. Hannan: Is not that reply somewhat surprising in view of the statement made by the Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary, who was quoted in the newspapers as saying on 4th March that the present method of subsidising agriculture encourages farmers to be lazy and is like pouring water into a leaking bucket? Has the hon. Gentleman's promotion to a Whip been made to ensure his silence in these matters?

Mr. Maclay: My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) was speaking entirely for himself, but I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should take steps to find out the full context in which my hon. Friend's remark was made, because he will find it does not bear the implication that he suggests.

Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: Is it not a weakness of the present system that in order to secure the profitability of small farms in remote areas agricultural support has to be fixed at a level which is over-generous to large farms on good land? Will not my right hon. Friend consider the possibility of amending the system so as to provide greater help to farms which suffer disabilities, such as height above sea level and, in particular, remoteness from markets?

Mr. Maclay: I think that my hon. Friend will realise Chat he has raised a complex question. The Government's obligations are to the industry as a whole, and the support system is designed accordingly.

Price Review

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what complaints be has received from farmers' organisations concerning the recent Price Review; and what has been the nature of his replies.

Mr. Maclay: I have received two telegrams expressing concern at the outcome of the recent Price Review, one from the Council of the National Farmers' Union of Scotland and the other from the Blackface Sheep Breeders' Association. My hon. Friend the Joint Undersecretary of State for Scotland replied generally to criticisms of the Review in his speech at the N.F.U.'s Annual General Meeting on 25th March.

Mr. Hamilton: Did he have a rough meeting? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is very strong opinion among Scottish farmers that, in the words of one of the members of the Perth area executive of the National Farmers' Union, now that the election is over they have been sold down the river by the Government? What steps is he going to take in view of the threat that at the next Price Review a big stick would be brought along?

Mr. Maclay: My hon. Friend replied to a lot of the charges about this Price Review at the meeting with the Scottish N.F.U. If the hon. Gentleman will undertake to read it, I will send him a copy of the very admirable speech made by my hon. Friend the Joint Undersecretary of State.

Farming Subsidies

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware of the widespread concern about the indiscriminate and unfair distribution of farming subsidies; what representations he has received on this matter; and what action he intends to take.

Mr. Maclay: I am not aware of any widespread concern on this matter, and I have not received representations about it. The subsidy arrangements were recently reviewed, with the results set out in the White Paper, Cmnd. 970, and the Government have no further changes in mind at the moment.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the Minister refuting what his hon. Friend said on 4th March, that they are encouraging laziness among farmers? Will he not now denounce or deny that statement on behalf of the Government, because it really was a scandalous attack on the farming community?

Mr. Maclay: The hon. Gentleman cannot have listened to the reply I gave to an earlier supplementary question. If he takes the trouble to find out the full context of my hon. Friend's remarks, he will find out what it is all about.

Sir J. Duncan: Would my right hon. Friend agree that, judging from recent market prices, agriculture in Scotland is in a very healthy state?

Mr. T. Fraser: If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that agriculture is in such a healthy state in Scotland, perhaps he will take the opportunity at some time of explaining why it is that the farmers' organisations in Scotland are up in arms now? Does he realise that there is great dissatisfaction with this level of subsidies in Scotland at the present time? If his hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley) is right in suggesting that the subsidies are to a large extent going to well-to-do farmers and small farmers on thin land are getting a very rough deal, will he undertake to have a look at some of the leaks in the bucket?

Mr. Maclay: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that all these matters are looked at extremely carefully each year when we come to the Annual Price Review, and I do not think that in Question and Answer I can go into full details of the matters that have to be considered when we are considering the Price Review.

Mental Hospitals (Occupational Therapists)

Miss Herbison: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many fully qualified occupational therapists are employed in mental hospitals in Scotland.

Mr. Maclay: Forty-seven whole-time and one part-time fully qualified occupational therapists are employed in mental hospitals in Scotland.

Miss Herbison: Is the right horn. Gentleman satisfied that that number is

sufficient? Is he aware that the work of the occupational therapist plays a vital part in the treatment of the mentally ill? What steps does he propose to take to provide a reasonable supply of occupational therapists for Scotland?

Mr. Maclay: I agree that that there is room for improvement. My Department has asked the Western Regional Hospital Board to consider the matter of a training school for occupational therapists in Glasgow. We are also in touch with the Scottish Association of Occupational Therapists about other long-term measures to improve the position.

Miss Herbison: When does the Minister expect to have a reply from the Western Regional Hospital Board? Will he ensure that it will not take as long to consider this question as it has taken to consider the question of centres for the treatment of rheumatism?

Mr. Maclay: I hope that we shall receive a reply shortly.

Miss Herbison: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many fully qualified occupational therapists are employed in Hartwood and Hartwoodhill Mental Hospitals.

Mr. Maclay: No fully qualified occupational therapist is employed in Hart-wood and Hartwoodhill Mental Hospital.

Miss Herbison: Is the Minister aware that Hartwood and Hartwoodhill together form the biggest mental hospital in Scotland, with almost 1,500 patients? Does he not think it disgraceful that so many mentally-ill patients should be without the help of occupational therapists anywhere in Scotland?

Mr. Maclay: Without criticising the work of the two occupational therapists at Hartwoodhill—neither of whom holds a recognised qualification—I realise that it is highly desirable that fully qualified staff would be available for this important part of mental hospital treatment.

Miss Herbison: Would the right hon. Gentleman be pleased even if the two occupational therapists—[Interruption.] This is a very important matter, affecting 1,500 mentally-ill people. Would the Minister be pleased even if the two


occupational therapists he has mentioned were fully qualified, having regard to the great number of mentally-ill people involved?

Mr. Maclay: The hon. Lady should not have drawn that inference from my answer. I made it clear that it is desirable that we should get more occupational therapists in our mental hospitals as quickly as we can.

Rheumatism

Mr. Manuel: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will bring in regulations for the notification and treatment of rheumatism in all local health authority areas.

Mr. Maclay: Regulations can do no more than require the notification of diseases to the local health authorities. They could secure no useful purpose in connection with the treatment of persons suffering from rheumatism generally.

Mr. Manuel: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has made some very slighting remarks about England, but that 14 local authorities have been designated in England in respect of the notification and treatment of acute rheumatism arising in children under the age of 16? Is not the Minister aware that the incidence of this disease is much larger in Scotland? If the Minister of Health, who specified these areas by way of regulations, feels that this work should be carried out in England, does not the Minister think that Scotland has just as much claim to participate in the treatment of rheumatism?

Mr. Maclay: The hon. Member may have misunderstood my reply. The notification in relation to affected persons under the age of 16 has been made compulsory in certain areas of England and Wales in order to provide information on the incidence of this rather special form of the disease, which will assist the work of the Rheumatic Fever Committee, which is studying it. I have not received any suggestion that this work should be carried out in Scotland, but if I do I shall consider it.

Roads

Mr. Willis: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many miles of roads in Scotland have dual carriage-

ways; how many miles of dual carriageway will be made in 1960, and how many miles within the next five years.

Mr. Maclay: Thirty-five miles of trunk road in Scotland have dual two-lane carriageways at present. A further 21 miles will be open to traffic in 1960. Schemes now in progress or to be authorised under the present £40 million programme will provide a further 70 miles by 1965 I regret that the information asked for is not available in respect of classified roads without a special approach to local authorities.

Mr. Willis: In view of the fact that we have a large number of unemployed and also that equipment is lying about at present, cannot the Minister speed up this programme in connection with dual carriageways, especially on the Edinburgh-Glasgow road, which seems to have been going on for a very long time?

Mr. Maclay: The hon. Member knows from some of the answers which I have given previously on this matter that we are steadily speeding up the whole road programme in Scotland, and have been doing so for some time. I agree with the hon. Member that the job is important, but the amount of labour employed in these big road work schemes is very small in relation to the capital involved.

Mr. T. Fraser: Does the Minister appreciate that anyone who travels on the trunk roads from Scotland through England cannot help but observe what a small number of workers are employed on Scottish trunk road construction compared with the number employed south of the Border? On part of the A.74 road—from Glasgow to Carlisle—one sees miles of highway all churned up. Those stretches of road have been like that for months without one worker being employed on them. Does not the Minister realise that there are still 85,000 people unemployed in Scotland? It is high time that he greatly accelerated the road works programme in Scotland.

Mr. Maclay: The hon. Member will appreciate that work on these main roads is carefully phased. On examination, he will find that no time is being wasted on the work that is being done.

Mr. Willis: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many miles of classified roads in Scotland are still


single lane; how many miles of singlelane roads have been widened to take two lines of traffic since 1950; and how many miles it is proposed to widen by 1965.

Mr. Maclay: I regret that information about the present position could be provided only after consultation with all highway authorities, many of whom would have to carry out considerable research. I have not yet got details of all the schemes likely to be carried out by 1965.

Mr. Willis: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are still far too many hundreds of miles of single-lane roadways in the North of Scotland? In view of the fact that we are trying to attract tourists to that area, and also in view of the large number of unemployed in Scotland, does he not think that he ought not to be making any single-line roadways now but should be making them all double track?

Mr. Maclay: The hon. Member will be aware that the Highland White Paper, published not long ago, made it clear that we are speeding up the whole programme in the Highlands as well as elsewhere in Scotland. It is true that the quicker we can get rid of single-lane roads the better.

Mr. T. Fraser: Is the Minister aware that the White Paper to which he has referred shows that the crofters counties' scheme, initiated in 1936, will be nearing completion in 1965? That is not very good progress.

Mr. Maclay: But the White Paper shows a very substantial speeding up of the programme that we had before then.

Youth Service

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to overcome the disappointing progress made in recent years in providing for young people in the field of social education.

Mr. Maclay: I hope to issue shortly a circular about recent and future developments in youth service and indicating the increased financial provision that is being made.

Mr. Rankin: Does the Minister appreciate that that is a very unfair answer?

It is only a year ago since he issued a circular on this work. Why should he now say that he will issue another circular, without telling me what he proposes to do, at least in a very sketchy form? Does he realise that that is what is asked for in the Question?

Mr. Maclay: I should be glad if the hon. Member would put down another Question on the matter later. I am not quite ready to give details.

Mr. Rankin: May I, then, ask the Minister two questions? First, does he realise that 80 per cent. of the youth of Scotland leave school at 15 years of age? Can he say what percentage go to youth centres? Secondly, does he realise that over the last three years the number of unemployed young people in Glasgow—over 15 and under 18 years of age—has risen from 360 to 1,156? What is he going to do to tackle that problem, in view of the widespread unemployment in Scotland?

Mr. Maclay: I am well aware of the problem in Scotland, and I am taking steps to deal with it as far as I can. I have said that as soon as I can I will give fuller information in detail.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Benefits and Entertainment Expenses

Sir K. Pickthorn: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what is estimated to be the likely yield if fringe benefits to employees were effectively taxed at their money value;
(2) what he estimates would be the additional revenue obtained if expenses on entertainment were wholly disallowed.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Heathcoat Amory): I regret the information is not available.

Nationalised Industries (Advances)

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will publish, suitably tabulated, the amount of advances made to seven nationalised industries under Section 42 of the Finance Act, 1956, Section 36 of the Finance Act, 1958, and Section 36 of the Finance Act, 1959, in the aggregate


sum of £1,620 million provided under the Finance Act, 1959, showing the amount of the advance to each of the seven industries each year during the period 1956 to 1960 in the total of £1,620 million for which statutory powers were taken for the period stated.

Mr. Amory: With permission, I will circulate the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Nabarro: Will my right hon. Friend apply himself to the principle inherent in this Question? Will he tell the House why, after seeking powers

EXCHEQUER ADVANCES TO NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES UNDER SECTION 42 OF THE FINANCE ACT, 1956, AS AMENDED


£ million


Financial Year
1956–57
1957–58
1958–59
1959–60
Total


Electricity Council
…
148·0
123·0
139·0
206·0
616·0


North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board
…
19·9
17·4
15·5
15·3
68·1


South of Scotland Electricity Board
…
5·25
12·0
17·75
22·5
57·5


Gas Council
…
24·0
32·0
25·0
29·0
110·0


British Transport Commission
…
70·0
68·0
117·0
120·68
375·68


British Overseas Airways Corporation
…
9·9
32·6
30·3
17·0
89·8


British European Airways Corporation
…
7·05
10·0
8·0
14·0
39·05


Total
…
284·1
295·0
352·55
424·48
1,356·13

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will publish precise details of Treasury finance for nationalised industries in respect of the three years 1960–61, 1961–62, and 1962–63, showing a separate sum for each industry, each year, and the aggregate sum to correspond to the sum to be included in the Finance Bill, 1960, covering the Electricity Council, the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, the South of Scotland Electricity Board, the Gas Council, the British Transport Commission, British Overseas Airways Corporation, and British European Airways Corporation.

Mr. Amory: I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT estimates of the advances to be made to each of the seven nationalised industries in the financial year 1960–61. Individual figures for later years are not yet available.

Mr. Nabarro: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that that reply demonstrated very aptly the difficulties of Private Members in this House? If he does take powers for three years' ahead and cannot give us the figures for those three years, is it reasonable to expect Parliament to

annually both in 1958 and 1959 so that Parliament had an opportunity to scrutinise the matter in the Finance Bill annually, he now proposes to take powers for three years ahead at one bite, thus effectively removing from Parliamentary accountability the opportunity to scrutinise these big figures before—and I emphasise before—the money is spent?

Mr. Amory: It is possible that I may have an opportunity of dealing with this subject during our discussions on the Finance Bill.

Following is the information:

pronounce upon these matters so far ahead of the actual money becoming available? Would it not be more appropriate to continue to deal with the matter on an annual basis?

Mr. Amory: I must ask my hon. Friend to await the issue of the Finance Bill, which will take place later this afternoon.

Mr. H. Wilson: Is it not a fact that this question was exhaustively inquired into by the Radcliffe Committee, which said that this was the right way of financing the nationalised industries? Is the Chancellor aware that, right from the time when the Prime Minister himself in 1956 started this system, then on a two years basis, we have ourselves supported the line taken by the Government?

Mr. Amory: My answer to the supplementary question of my hon. Friend on the last Question applies also to this one.

Mr. Jay: Will the Chancellor give us comparable figures for public loans and subsidies to private industry?

Mr. Amory: That is a separate question.

Following are the estimates:

ESTIMATED EXCHEQUER ADVANCES TO NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES UNDER SECTION 42 OF THE FINANCE ACT,
1956, AS AMENDED


Financial Year, 1960–61



£ million


Electricity Council
195


North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board
16


South of Scotland Electricity Board
20


Gas Council
32


British Transport Commission
160


British Overseas Airways Corporation
35


British European Airways Corporation
24


Total
482

University Teachers (Salaries)

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is now able to make an announcement regarding the salaries of university teachers.

Mr. Amory: I hope it will be possible to announce a decision shortly.

Mr. Robinson: Is the Chancellor aware that these negotiations have been going on for nearly six months? Will he say whether any adjustments that may be made will be made retrospective to October?

Mr. Amory: The Answer I have just given will show that we are not delaying. I do not think the delay has been excessive. This is quite an important issue, with some complications of its own in it. When I said "shortly", I hoped that it would be safe even to add "very shortly".

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Direct Works Departments

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will take powers to place municipal direct works departments in a comparable position to private building firms by allowing them to prepare annual profit and loss accounts, without having to make a profit on each individual contract.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): No, Sir.

Mr. Allaun: If to retain their working forces and cover their overheads private firms may occasionally accept contracts at under cost, why not public works departments? Will the Minister therefore reconsider his recent circular on tendering, which prevents such departments applying the surplus or profit on one contract to another?

Sir K. Joseph: A direct works department does not sink or swim on the basis of its quotation in the same way as a private builder does, and to weaken still further the link between market value, the quotation and the cost would not, in the view of my right hon. Friend, encourage efficiency.

Mr. Emery: Does not my hon. Friend realise that 25 per cent. of the local authorities which have used direct labour forces for house building since 1951 have now given them up? Will he consider giving the strongest warning to local authorities that direct labour forces usually cost the ratepayers large sums of money?

Hon. Members: Rubbish.

Mr. M. Stewart: If comparisons like those just made by the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Emery) are to be made, and the question at issue is the cost to the ratepayers, surely it is desirable that the two concerns, the direct works department and the private firm, should be able to work on equal terms? Why will not the Parliamentary Secretary give an affirmative answer to my hon. Friend's question?

Sir K. Joseph: I am trying to explain that the quotation of a direct works department and that of a private builder are not on all fours, and that it is for this reason that my right hon. Friend has tried to establish the link between the market value, the quotation and the cost.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS ACCOMMODATION (QUESTIONS)

Mrs. Castle: asked the Prime Minister if, in view of the desirability of enabling Questions to be asked in the House, he will seek powers to enable the Leader of the House to answer Questions relating to the allocation of accommodation in the Commons' section of the


Palace of Westminster, the provision of secretarial facilities for Members and the increase in the establishment necessary to secure the better servicing of Members and committees; and whether he will allot the Leader of the House a place in the rota of Ministers at Question Time for this purpose.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): No, Sir. I am not in favour of disturbing the present arrangements.

Mrs. Castle: Is the Prime Minister aware that under present arrangements hon. Members have no regular machinery whatsoever for expressing their needs and their views upon this question of accommodation and establishment, which vitally affects their working efficiency? Does he not think it is time that there was such regular machinery established, and if he will not give us the House of Commons Commission for which we ask, will he not at least give us the opportunity of asking Questions in this House about these matters which are of direct concern to Members in their capacity as Members?

The Prime Minister: It is a very long tradition that no Questions are put to the Leader of the House in that capacity, and I would be unwilling to make a breach in that tradition at the present time. There have been many methods by which these questions have been raised, and I think it would be best to see whether the present machinery can be made satisfactory before making any change in it.

Sir T. Moore: May I ask the Prime Minister to accept the view that this question of Members' accommodation has been grossly exaggerated? Is he aware that for years past I have had a desk in a room upstairs where there are 14 other desks available, that I have used it daily, and that during all those years I have never been joined by more than two companions?

The Prime Minister: All this shows the variety and complexity of this problem. I would only say that I feel sure that the House of Commons as a whole in its corporate capacity wants us to do what we can for its convenience. We had a debate the other day. I hope that as a result of that debate we shall be able by one means or another to meet

some of the needs which hon. Members feel, but I do not really believe that it would be a good thing to establish the Leader of the House, who has a long recognised position and particular functions in the House, as the appropriate Minister to answer a large number of Questions which affect many other Ministers.

Mrs. Castle: If the Prime Minister thinks that the Leader of the House is not the appropriate person, will he not give serious consideration to the suggestion of the Opposition and of the Stokes Committee that there should be a House of Commons Commission, the vice-chairman of which could answer questions in the House on these matters affecting the working efficiency of Members? This was a unanimous all-party recommendation, and of the Stokes Committee Report? It is for this that we are pressing, and the suggestion I made that the Leader of the House should answer was merely an alternative because the other had been turned down, though we should much prefer the Commission.

The Prime Minister: I was merely trying to answer the Question on the Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMONWEALTH PRIME MINISTERS' CONFERENCE

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Prime Minister for what date he issued the invitations to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.

The Prime Minister: For 3rd May.

Mr. Donnelly: Will the Prime Minister say how he hopes it will be possible for the Prime Ministers not to discuss the situation in South Africa when they meet?

The Prime Minister: I was only asked the question on what date the Conference is to meet. The Conference is to meet on 3rd May.

Mr. E. Fletcher: asked the Prime Minister whether he will discuss with the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, during their conference, the desirability of formulating a minimum code of conduct on race relations in the Commonwealth.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I do not think that formal codes of conduct of this kind are consonant with the spirit or practice of the Commonwealth.

Mr. Fletcher: Will the Prime Minister bear in mind that the whole question of race relationships and race equality is uppermost in the minds of a great many people? Would not he agree that it might well be appropriate at the Commonwealth Conference, in view of its special constitution, to give a moral lead to the world on this subject?

The Prime Minister: Of course, all these matters are very much in our minds —terribly in our minds. What we have here to try to do is to use this coming Conference to make what progress we can in these matters, to preserve the unity of the Commonwealth and to see how far Prime Ministers, in the more intimate discussions that they are able to have with each other, can make some useful contribution. I would venture to ask hon. Members and the House as a whole to recognise the very heavy responsibility that lies on this country at the moment—

Mr. Manuel: On the Government.

The Prime Minister: —and on this Government, too, to try to steer a wise course over this most complicated question which will lead, not merely to our priding ourselves on taking some outward action for which we can take credit, but to useful results along the lines on which we all want to see progress made.

Mr. Marquand: The Prime Minister has rejected the suggestion put forward by my hon. Friend, as he rejected one put forward by myself a short time ago, for a Commonwealth convention on human rights. Is he aware that the recent events in South Africa have done grave injury to the repute of the Commonwealth throughout the world? Does not he think that some sort of declaration, formal or informal, ought to emerge from the Commonwealth Conference?

The Prime Minister: I am in the hands of the Conference. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom presides merely as a tradition, as the host Government. It is a completely independent body which makes its own rules and decides its agenda. I will bear all these things in mind. But I also ask, as I think—in

fact, I am sure—I can for the sympathy of the House, and from the Front Bench opposite, during a difficult period in which we have to try to achieve two things, some advance in the preaching and development of the principles we believe in, while at the same time keeping together the Commonwealth with its present and future value to the world.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that Commonwealth unity can be preserved and maintained only if all the member nations accept each other as equals and racial discrimination is removed?

The Prime Minister: Yes. But of course, as the right hon. Gentleman knows quite well, there are many problems in each of the countries of the Commonwealth which might be discussed—racial problems and racial conflicts—and if we began to discuss them at a Commonwealth Conference we should get into very deep waters, and it would have grave results which we would wish to avoid. I think we should maintain the principle that internal questions are not discussed, yet by some method, formal or informal, we should bring our minds to bear on these problems.

Oral Answers to Questions — SUMMIT CONFERENCE

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Prime Minister if he will make an official broadcast to the nation before the Summit Conference.

The Prime Minister: It would, I think, be more in keeping with mountaineering tradition if I were to reserve my breath for the last stages of the ascent itself.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Prime Minister aware that those were not the views which he held when he broadcast on foreign affairs two years ago on 4th January? He did not spare his breath on that occasion, but said that we could start by a solemn pact of non-aggression, which had been done before, that it would do no harm and it might do good. Is he aware that Mr. Khrushchev accepted this proposal of his for a pact of non-aggression at Moscow, and that he also offered to sign with his allies? Would it not be a good thing if the Prime Minister returned to this, and, if he did,


would he not get popular support in this country?

The Prime Minister: I do not feel that there is any great need at the moment for increasing my popular support in the country or in the House of Commons. What we have now got is that the Summit is going to take place. I worked very hard for this, and there have been many setbacks and disappointments, but I think that the House as a whole is glad that it is to take place, How we are to make a success of it, what we can best hope to get out of it and how best to negotiate in it are very difficult problems, and I do not honestly think that for me to make a broadcast the day before setting out would be the best preliminary for such negotiations.

Mr. H. Wilson: Apart from any suggestion of a broadcast, may I ask the Prime Minister what kind of arrangement, if any, the Government are proposing for a full debate in this House before the Summit Conference so that hon. Members in all parts of the House may express their views on this very important gathering?

The Prime Minister: That might be raised through the usual channels.

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Prime Minister, in view of Mr. Khrushchev's forthcoming visit to Great Britain after the Summit Conference, if he will state what arrangements have been made in connection with it.

The Prime Minister: No such arrangements have been made.

Mr. Hughes: In the event of the success of the Summit Conference, for which we all pray, would it not be a good thing to invite to London leading world statesmen, such as Mr. Khrushchev, so as to inaugurate a period of world peace and disarmament, and. in fact, of world government?

The Prime Minister: I am hoping for some success at the Summit, but I Jo not think I can hope to go quite so tar as the hon. and learned Gentleman suggests.

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Prime Minister if he will state what agreements he has reached with the various Powers which will be repre-

sented at the Summit Conference as to its limits and as to the subjects to be discussed there.

The Prime Minister: I think it is generally understood by the four Governments who are to be represented at the Summit Conference that each of the participants will be free to raise any topic he may wish.

Mr. Hughes: Does the Prime Minister realise that this is a matter of life and death to millions of people and that the British people, as a democracy, are entitled to be informed on the matters set out in my Question? Will he. therefore, make a public statement?

The Prime Minister: It is because it is such an important matter—the holding of this Summit Conference, for which I and my colleagues have worked so hard and so long—that I think it is very important not to jeopardise the negotiations by binding statements. It would make the negotiations almost impossible if each side is tied to this or that position before the Conference even begins.

Oral Answers to Questions — BLUE STREAK MISSILE

Mr. Swingler: asked the Prime Minister which Ministers will now consider, with the firms and other interests concerned, whether the Blue Streak missile could be adapted as a launcher for space satellites.

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation is considering this matter with the firms concerned. My noble Friend the Minister for Science is in touch with the scientists interested in space research. The decision whether or not to proceed with the programme will naturally be one for the Government as a whole.

Mr. Swingler: Will the Prime Minister give an assurance that the assent of the House will be sought before any decision is taken on proceeding with Blue Streak as a space satellite launcher? Secondly, will the Prime Minister say what steps he is taking to ensure that this matter is being considered entirely on its merits in the interests of science and the nation and not at all biased by any idea of face-saving devices for Ministers or a sop to vested interests involved?

The Prime Minister: The second part of that supplementry question seemed to be more in the nature of a speech, which perhaps the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to make tomorrow during the short debate which I understand the Opposition has asked for. Regarding the first part of the question, it is, of course, for the Government to take the decision and for the House of Commons to support them or not as it may think fit.

Mr. H. Wilson: While, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, we shall be debating this tomorrow, will he use his influence—which is probably considerable—within the Government to ensure that when this matter is decided by the Government we shall have the whole scheme for space research put before the House, with the estimated cost, so that the House and the country may have an opportunity to discuss it and consider whether it is really worth the money involved?

The Prime Minister: As I say, I think it is for the Government to make the decision. The question of a debate is a matter we can arrange in the usual way in a manner agreeable to all. I will certainly use my influence with the Government to get a united decision. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would occasionally use his influence to get unity on this matter among the Opposition.

Mr. Shinwell: How does the right hon. Gentleman know that the debate tomorrow will be a short one? Is he aware that that is not a matter for the Government to determine; it is a matter for the House?

The Prime Minister: Of course, but it is usual for the Government to accede to the request of the Opposition, and I understood that the official Opposition had asked for a short debate.

Oral Answers to Questions — NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Mr. Swingler: asked the Prime Minister if, in view of the substantial section of public opinion favouring unilateral action by Great Britain to end the nuclear arms race, he will cause a review to be made of Her Majesty's Government's foreign and defence policies to

find ways and means of implementing this.

The Prime Minister: Her Majesty's Government's policy is to aim for balanced disarmament, both conventional and nuclear, under effective international control. To this end, my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary outlined proposals in the United Nations last autumn, and these led to the putting forward of the Western plan at Geneva. I earnestly hope that on the basis of this plan, which is practical and comprehensive, progress will be made.

Mr. Swingler: Does not the Prime Minister think that some review of Government policy is required at this time? In view of the powerful impact of the Aldermaston march, which is indisputable, and in view of the Government's own drift into unilateral disarmament by a series of defaults, is not this clearly a time when the Government should try to make an attempt to reconcile the assumptions on which their foreign policy is based with the out-dated principles of their defence policy?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, I do not think—I do not think that the House as a whole believes—that unilateral disarmament by the Government would be the best method of getting what we hope to achieve in these discussions, partly at Geneva and perhaps fortified by our discussions at the Summit—some real advance in the disarmament programme.

Mr. S. Silverman: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that what he is being asked about is not unilateral disarmament in general but the much more limited question of whether this country should take part in nuclear warfare or be armed with an independent nuclear deterrent? In view of the perfectly plain statement by the Minister of Defence only a short time ago that we have never had one, that we have not got one and that we cannot get delivery of one, would it not be wiser to accede to my hon. Friend's request to review the policy so as to make the facts accord with the theories?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I think that every statement the hon. Gentleman has made is biased, unfair, ill-balanced and false.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROADS (EXPENDITURE)

Mr. Holt: asked the Prime Minister, in view of the inadequacy of the United Kingdom road-building programme and of the dangers and inefficiency of present piecemeal development, if he will personally review current plans to see whether Her Majesty's Government should not allocate a further £70 million a year to new road construction as a matter of urgency.

The Prime Minister: I do not accept that the size of the road-building programme is leading to inefficiency and piecemeal development. The estimates recently published for expenditure on new construction and major improvement in the United Kingdom show an increase of some £13 million over the figures for last year. The size of the programme for future years will be determined in relation to all other demands on our resources.

Mr. Holt: Would not the Prime Minister agree that the present scale of operations on road building is completely out of relationship with the problem in which we are involved? Would not he agree that unless the Government step up the whole scale of their operations, they are only delaying a road-building programme which inevitably will be a great deal more costly?

The Prime Minister: Yes. That is why they have stepped it up. Five years ago the total expenditure was £5 million; this year it will be £76 million.

Oral Answers to Questions — SKYBOLT MISSILE

Mr. Rankin: asked the Prime Minister what agreement he has reached with the United States Government on the use of the Skybolt missile.

The Prime Minister: The United States Government have made it clear that they will be prepared to sell the Skybolt missile to the United Kingdom Government when it has been developed.

Mr. Rankin: In view of that Answer, can the Prime Minister assure us that there will be no strings attached to this sale, when and if it takes place? If he thinks it necessary to have Skybolt, will this country have the full use

of it? Can he say why he confines himself to one supplier? Has he consulted Mr. Khrushchev about whether he could supply a better missile?

The Prime Minister: I will bear in mind the matter referred to in the last part of the supplementary question. The missile will be entirely in our control, subject to the rules about all these sales of arms, that they must not be disposed of to other countries without the consent of the supplier Government, that they must not pass any secret information to other Governments and they should not be used for aggressive purposes.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Can my right hon. Friend say whether what he has told us will be accepted by any other Government which may be formed in the United States?

The Prime Minister: Of course, it is always our problem, but I would say that when agreements are made by one Government, unless very exceptional circumstances arise between nations they are normally accepted and followed by the succeeding Governments.

Oral Answers to Questions — WORLD REFUGEE YEAR

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what further action the Government propose to take to encourage British voluntary organisations to reach the present target set for dealing with the world refugee problem, in view of the approaching end of World Refugee Year.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Robert Allan): Her Majesty's Government have from the beginning of World Refugee Year given every encouragement to the British voluntary organisations. They will continue to do so till the end of it.

Mr. Parker: Cannot the Government give a larger grant so as to stimulate voluntary assistance for the refugees?

Mr. Allan: I think that we may have an opportunity of discussing these questions in greater detail later this afternoon. My right hon. and learned Friend recently drew a distinction between the voluntary contribution of the individual and the compulsory contribution of the


taxpayer, and I think that we have to bear that in mind in dealing with the Question which the hon. Member has just asked.

Oral Answers to Questions — PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE

Old-Age Pensioners

Mr. Janner: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he can yet make a statement on the proposals he has in mind for helping old-age pensioners and other older people to partake of the prosperity of the country.

The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): I have nothing to add to what I said in the debates on 16th March and 13th April.

Mr. Janner: Is the Minister aware that considerable frustration is felt by old-age pensioners and by other older people when, after they have given all their best years to make a contribution to the prosperity of the country, they are entirely neglected? Will not the Minister reconsider the position and see that they are given a fair share on this occasion?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: To describe a steady and progressive increase in the provision for the old as a cause for frustration is a sheer misconception and a sheer misuse of language.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Excavation Works (Accidents)

Mr. Manuel: asked the Minister of Labour how many accidents have occurred from 1949 to 1959 owing to the caving-in of trenches being excavated for the provision of sewer and other services; and how many of these accidents were fatal.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Peter Thomas): Comprehensive statistics of accidents resulting from the collapse of excavations are only available from 1954. From that year to 1959, inclusive, 842 such accidents were reported, of which 80 were fatal. These figures relate to all excavations and separate figures are not available for sewers and other services.

Mr. Manuel: Does not the Parliamentary Secretary think this is rather an alarming state of affairs? Is there any safety legislation of a protective nature which will ensure that these cave-ins do not take place? Or does he think there is a need for some steel protection, such as a shield, to stop the tragic loss of life and the large number of accidents?

Mr. Thomas: The numbers which I gave to the House are a very small proportion of the 17,000 accidents which take place each year on construction sites, but I agree with the hon. Member that every effort should be made to prevent these accidents. As the hon. Member knows, it is intended that the safety provisions of the building regulations which refer to excavations on building sites will be extended to cover works of engineering construction. Preliminary draft regulations were sent out to interested organisations on 31st March for their comments. Before these regulations can finally be made, there will be full consultation and a statutory draft will have to be issued.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Royal Wedding

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements are being made by the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis to ensure that Members of Parliament, and others, shall have unimpeded access to the Palace of Westminster on the morning of Friday, 6th May.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): We shall propose that the House do not sit on Friday, 6th May. I hope, therefore, that the difficulties envisaged in the hon. Member's questions will not arise. I will make a supplementary statement at a later date about making up the time lost to Private Members. This is not likely to be possible before the Whitsun Recess.

Mr. Lipton: What representations were received by the Government which made them change their mind, because the original announcement made by the right hon. Gentleman was to the effect that the House would sit on 6th May. What has happened since then to make the right hon. Gentleman change his mind?

Mr. Butler: The Government have not changed their mind. We always thought that it would perhaps be difficult to sit on that day. On consideration of the obvious difficulties of approach to the Chamber, which are raised in the Question, and out of regard to the solemnity and importance of the occasion, which has animated the Government's wishes in this matter, we have thought it better not to sit on this occasion.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: As the fortunate winner of the first place in the Ballot for Friday, 6th May, may I ask my right hon. Friend to tell me whether time on another Friday or some other time will be allotted for discussion of my Motion and other important Motions?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. I have my hon. Friend's Motion before me. I said that I would make a supplementary statement on a later day. I do not think that it will be possible to give a similar time, which is what we have in mind, until after the Whitsun Recess.

Mr. Janner: As the fortunate, or unfortunate, hon. Member with the second place in the Ballot, I have put down a Motion which is of extreme urgency, apart from its importance. It is about the Albemarle Report, which is an extremely important matter. Will not the Leader of the House consider giving us an opportunity of bringing this Motion and the Motion of the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) before the House before the Whitsun holidays?

Mr. Butler: I cannot alter the fortune which attended the hon. Member in the Ballot—the fact that his Motion came second to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke), despite its great importance; but I have said that I hope that similar time will be allotted by the Government, although I do not think it will be easy to find it before the Whitsun Recess.

Sir T. Moore: On a point of order—and I shall be interested to know whether it is a point of order. Could you, Mr. Speaker, give us any estimate —apart from those hon. Members who have Motions down for Friday, 6th May —of how many hon. Members will be affected, in order to get the perspective right?

Mr. Speaker: There is no element of order about estimates of numbers of Members.

Mr. Gordon Walker: As there is a touch of ambiguity about the right hon. Gentleman's statement, will he tell us clearly that he will find another equivalent day for Private Members' business? There may be some difficulty about exactly when it is provided, but the right hon. Gentleman has also not fully and unequivocally committed himself to giving an equivalent day to the day which is lost. Will he do that?

Mr. Butler: What I have said is, I think, quite definite: we will find a similar amount of time. I think that should satisfy the hon. Members concerned.

Mr. Driberg: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the time which is to be made up later to these hon. Members will not be made up to them at the expense of other private Members?

Mr. Butler: I think that if I did that I should get into trouble.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (CENSURE MOTION)

Mr. Shinwell: With your consent, Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Leader of the House on the business for tomorrow. Will he reconsider the Government's decision to conclude the debate on the Motion of censure submitted by the official Opposition at 7 p.m.? Is he aware that this is a very important topic and that its implications can range over a very wide field? I have ascertained that there is very strong feeling, not only on this side of the House, but on the other side, among hon. Members who feel that they would like to take part in this debate. In the circumstances, will the right hon. Gentleman agree that the debate should continue until the usual time of 10 p.m.?

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): The right hon. Member has not got it quite right. It is not a Government decision. The Opposition put down a Motion of censure, a challenge which the Government have been


very glad to accept. The Opposition also asked us for a short debate, up to 7 p.m., which we also accepted. As we have done nothing but accept the wishes of the Opposition, with a desire ultimately to defeat them utterly on their Motion, if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to raise the matter I think that he should raise it with the official Opposition.

Mr. H. Wilson: I hope that there will be no misunderstanding about this. The Motion on the Order Paper is relatively narrow, dealing with the Government's responsibility for the waste and inefficiency in the Blue Streak programme. We have demanded a full-dress inquiry into it, and certainly we do not want to do anything tomorrow which would rule out a very wide and searching debate on a later occasion of all the issues raised by what has happened. But as far as we are concerned, if there is a feeling in any part of the House that by 7 p.m. we cannot adequately debate the issues covered by this Motion, we shall be the last people to want to end the debate at 7 p.m.
Provided, therefore, that the Leader of the House does not propose taking Government business after 10 p.m., and that he is prepared to clear the Government business out of the way, we shall be quite happy, and, indeed, will welcome, the debate being as searching as possible on this very important Motion of censure.

Mr. Butler: The nature of the Motion put on the Order Paper is the responsibility of the Opposition. They can either limit it or enlarge it as they like. They chose to phrase it as they did. I must make the reservation on Government business that in any suggestion made that will meet the wishes of the House we should have an opportunity of obtaining at least a part, if not all, of Government business. That is a matter on which I must absolutely reserve my position.
The debate on the Motion is not one which we wish to shorten, because our case is perfectly good and we should like to put it in answer to any representations made from either side of the House. I therefore think that the best arrangement which we can make, subject to what I have said about the entire responsibility of the Opposition in this matter

and also about the choice of the hour of 7 p.m., is that we should have a discussion through the usual channels as to how best to meet the wishes of the House.

Mr. Shinwell: In view of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) has said about the desirability of having the debate continued beyond 7 p.m. if hon. Members so wish, and of what the Leader of the House has said, can we not now agree that the debate should continue until 10 p.m.? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if the debate is curtailed in the manner indicated, it will mean that back-bench Members will be almost completely excluded from the debate, because there will be two speakers from the Front Bench on this side of the House and two speakers from the Government Front Bench, and possibly a Liberal speaker. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The Liberal Party have an Amendment on the Order Paper and they have as much right to express their views as have hon. Members opposite. I will say a word on their behalf, even if they cannot say it themselves.
In view of that, will not the right hon. Gentleman now agree to extend the debate? Is he aware that, in any event, there is nothing in the Standing Order which would prevent hon. Members from rising at 7 p.m. and continuing the debate? Is not that the position?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. I am perfectly well aware of that point. Hitherto, we have done our best to meet the constitutional wishes of the Opposition. I am now faced with the desire of other hon. Members that the debate should be lengthened. That desire is also being voiced by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) at rather a late hour. What I suggest, therefore, is that we have the normal discussions between ourselves and try to meet the convenience of the House. For the purpose of warning hon. Members, I think it likely that the debate will be continued, but I should like to reserve my position about Government business and other matters for general discussion between the usual channels.

Mr. Wigg: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that this is not battledore and shuttlecock between the Front


Benches on each side of the House? This is an issue of transcendental importance to the future security of this country. Will the right hon. Gentleman therefore have in mind his duty, as Leader of the House, to give full weight to the minority views on both sides of the House?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. That is precisely why I said, after reminding the Opposition of their responsibility in this matter, that it would be reasonable to consider an extension of the debate. The matter is one of great importance. We realise that the main battledore and shuttlecock is between hon. Members on the other side of the House, and not on this side.

Mr. H. Wilson: Since the Leader of the House has suggested that the consequential effects of this arrangement be discussed through the usual channels, we can obviously leave it there, but I ask him to note that we have in no way accepted the principle that we are agreeable to the rest of the Government business being taken tomorrow after the end of this debate.
Will the right hon. Gentleman also bear in mind the point on which I pressed him previously—that since we are concerned, and the House of Commons has a duty to be concerned, with the expenditure of £100 million on this project, and since we are dealing particularly with that issue tomorrow, we shall want a debate before very long on the much wider issues of defence and foreign policy raised by the events of 13th April?

Mr. Butler: I understand that the matter is reserved for discussion between

the usual channels. That we shall accept. As for any future debate, we are always ready to debate and answer criticisms by the right hon. Gentleman or anybody else.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must not consume today in discussing tomorrow.

Mr. S. Silverman: On a point of order. Arising out of those exchanges, and principally what has been said in them quite recently about further discussions through the usual channels, and presumably agreements to be thereby reached, may I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, for your guidance, that whatever agreements may be reached through the usual channels the Motion of censure, when it is called, can come to an end only in one of three ways—first, by no more speakers rising to their feet; secondly, by the hour of ten o'clock being reached; and, thirdly, by a Motion for the Closure? The House itself is not bound by whatever discussions may take place through the usual channels or whatever agreements may be reached.

Mr. Speaker: I am not concerned with the usual channels. I am concerned with the practice and the Standing Orders. What the hon. Member says is quite right.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY [11TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Orders of the Day — CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1960–61

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair. —[Mr. Redmayne.]

CAPITAL INVESTMENT IN INDUSTRY

3.41 p.m.

Mr. John H. Osborn: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
this House, aware of the need to encourage well directed capital investment in industry, particularly investment in new plant and machinery to improve productivity, and thus industry's power to compete in foreign markets and raise the material standards of our people, welcomes the Government's support for scientific and technological research and development, and their practical application in industry, as an essential prerequisite for effective capital investment.
Annually, at this time of year, the House goes into Committee to discuss Supply and, in particular, Civil Estimates. We have to bear in mind that national expenditure has risen. There is a demand, in the House and from outside, that this expenditure should be examined.
In moving this Amendment today, it is my wish that the House should consider the quality of capital expenditure —science, technology and its application, both as regards capital investment and investment in the real wealth of this country—investment in our productive processes. This is the challenge of this decade, the 1960s.
In introducing the Amendment, my remarks are to pose and highlight the current technological problems which face us. I hope that my Amendment will lead to a constructive debate and that party differences will not be exaggerated. I hope that it will provide an opportunity for the Government to gain the views of the House and of the country.
It is opportune to raise this issue at this time, because it is our aim to increase prosperity and to implement the Conservative pledge of 1955 to doubt the country's standard of living in twenty-five years. Real wealth is achieved by the application of science and technology, resulting in greater productivity and efficiency in manufacture and distribution throughout the country. Our exports must continue to be competitive. This is essential if our standard of living in Great Britain is to rise and if we are to enjoy more leisure.
I wish to draw the attention of the House this afternoon to six major points. First, I wish to emphasise the extent to which the challenge of the 1960s is technological and scientific. The phrase, "The winds of change" has been used by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in South Africa to describe the spread of nationalism. The same phrase was used recently near my constituency, in Sheffield, by my noble Friend the Minister for Science when he described the wind of nationalism as
no more than a minor eddy in a great draught of technical and technological progress".
It is a great mistake to imagine that science and technology will not affect us. In recent years there has been talk of the under-developed countries. Technologically, this country is underdeveloped; in fact, technologically there is no over-developed country in the world.
I am particularly grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) for some articles which have appeared in the Sunday Times. He emphasised that this country's notion of scientific achievement is essentially linked with a breakthrough of knowledge, perhaps the addition to understanding, and that it is the product of intuition and perhaps of painstaking research in our laboratories.
The Soviet successes are due mainly to the speed of transition from laboratory to production. The photo-emulsion technique used in photographing the moon, for instance, was developed quickly for that purpose. The other advantage of the Soviet Union is the lavish scale of its research. I wish to refer to its attitude to automation and control engineering. If Russia wants a pilot plant to carry out research, a whole factory is


put down for this investigation and knowledge and practical experience of automation and the automatic factory, are thereby gained. At the same time, I would acknowledge the enthusiasm of the United States of America and the technological progress which has been going on there during the last few decades.
However, we must accept certain factors. Many technological advances are essentially as the results of defence and war. The Schneider Trophy may have accelerated the birth of the jet engine, but it was war which completed its development. This country faces, on the one hand, the problem of the practical application of science and technology. We must bear in mind that Russia directs its researches to a useful end through its Academy of Sciences. On the other hand, we are faced with the problem of preserving the freedom in our research associations and universities to pursue knowledge for its own sake.
In this country we have no wish to muzzel scientists. Scientific development in a democracy is essentially spread over a wide field. It can be extravagant. It can be lavish. Frequently, when research is initiated, the results cannot be visualised. Who would have thought, in the days of Rutherford and Bohr, that we would ever harness the atom? Atomic physics began many years ago. During the early developments of radar the cost was considered to be out of this world for normal commercial use. Now, every aircraft has radar equipment and most airports are equipped with radar. There has been much discussion about the possibility of space research. The full advantages and results of space research are known, and already we have learned their possibilities of observing weather and providing a better means of communication from one side of the earth to the other.
My second major point is to compare the standard of living and its relationship to capital investment in this country with that for the rest of the world. It is difficult to get exact comparisons of standards of living—there are many indices involving growth of national products—but it is reasonable to say that the present standard in the United States of America is from two or two and a half

times that of ours, and Canada, Australia and Sweden all enjoy a higher standard than we do.
Assessment of productivity has been difficulty. We had productivity reports many years ago, but it is reasonable to say that output per worker in the United States is now double that of the British worker. One obtains interesting figures when one compares the horse-power per worker in, say, the United States with that in this country. Some years ago, the American worker had at his elbow three times the horse-power that the worker here could command. Electrical generating capacity also provides some interesting comparisons. In the United States of America, the capacity is 700,000 million kVA; in the U.S.S.R. it is 233,000 million; and in this country it is 113,000 million. That means that, per head of population, the power available in the United States is double that in Great Britain, and ours is double that in Russia.
Another factor that should be considered is the proportion of fixed investment to the gross national product. In recent years, Germany, Holland and Italy have invested approximately 25 per cent. in capital investment, but that has been essential to repair war damage and other effects of war Recently, the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. have invested 17 per cent. of their gross national product in capital, but there has been a drop here in the last year.
It is, perhaps, also opportune to compare the scale of capital formation in Britain. In the public sector, this amounts to about £750 million, and we have been told in a White Paper that £500 million has been recently invested in the coal, electricity and gas industries. By comparison, investment in the private sector has been £1,711 million. The real all-in total is approximately £3,600 million.
Some of my hon. Friends feel strongly that expenditure in the public sector may be too large, and that more should be transferred to the private sector of industry, but it is useful at this stage to examine the pattern of capital formation in the private sector. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget statement, predicted, in spite of the overall downturn of 1959, but with a slight increase in the last quarter, an increase in capital investment of 14 per cent. this year.
Many people have asked me to find out which industries are spending that money. From a recent survey it would seem that the metal and steel industries are spending that money, and that the car industry is also spending it. It also so happens that it is the large industries that are spending money on capital investment, and not the smaller firms. Many associations representing the smaller industries have written to me because they are concerned at the lack of encouragement given to them by the Government and, particularly, by the Finance Bill—though that is outside the scope of this debate today.
Plant and engineering firms, those engaged in heavy engineering construction, are still concerned because they are working below capacity and facing diminishing order books, and some of the firms supplying the material basic to those industries are also worried because their order books have diminished over four years—

Mr. Roy Jenkins: When the hon. Member speaks of small industries, does he really mean small industries, or does he mean industries dominated by small firms?

Mr. Osborn: I mean firms employing probably 500 people or fewer—

Mr. Jenkins: Small firms?

Mr. Osborn: Small firms, yes.
I should like particularly to bring these matters to the notice of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, although he is probably already aware that that is the case.
A third factor that I wish to examine is the rôle of Government in relation, first, to capital formation and, secondly, to research and development: how much is the responsibility of the nation and Government, and how much should be left to private enterprise? This is the dilemma facing any nation, whether it is the United Kingdom, the United States of America or any modern democracy. I think that the answer to the problem is to improve the quality of investment and to eliminate waste. In the private sector, the forces of competition—the price mechanism—tend to look after this point but, unfortunately, the criterion of profitability is missing in the public sector, and an alternative must be found.

This afternoon, therefore, I want to concentrate on quality of investment.
We have recently had White Papers on research and development, from which we learn that about £300 million has been spent in a year by private industry on research and development, but two-thirds of that has been as a result of defence contracts, and I submit that this is far too high a figure for any nation.
Government expenditure on research on the civil side amounted to about £38 million, of which £12 million has been spent by the D.S.I.R. On the defence side, there has been an expenditure of about £204 million, making a total of £242 million. Of the nationalised industries, the electricity industry has spent £1·3 million; gas, £1·5 million; and coal £2·5 million. In a recent debate I suggested to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power that, bearing in mind the problems involved in the complete gasification of coal, the sum of £2·5 million might not be enough.
Here I should like to refer to the 1958 Report of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, which states:
The need for increased research and for the application of its results is never more clearly apparent than in times like the present, when industrial development must proceed apace if this country is to maintain its competitive position in world markets.
The Report goes on to say:
We consider that the present expenditure of the Department is small in relation to the importance of its work …
We must appreciate that those firms in the private sector that have embarked on extensive research and development programmes have progressed; they are, in fact, the "blue chips"—the successful companies. On the other hand, many of us have been asked by research directors and scientists in some industries whether the leaders in industry are conscious of the need for technological development, and whether those industries themselves contribute enough to research. In some instances, the contributions may amount to less than 1 per cent. of turnover, but, on the other hand, they ask whether the State is providing enough encouragement.
In the latter case, one should stress the importance of the work of the D.S.I.R. It has done much work in the formation of research associations, in


the hope that, in the course of time, the industries concerned will appreciate their value. In my own area, I can quote the example of the research association of the cutlery Manufacturers. The D.S.I.R. has for ten years made a grant amounting to 10s. in the £. After a time, it is the Department's custom to reduce the grant, but that association is now well developed and vigorous, and expects to make up the balance from its own resources.
It is not inopportune, perhaps, to refer at this stage to the machine tool industry. The scope for technological development in that industry is huge, and those in charge realise that. The potentialities of automation, electronics and hydraulics have already been recognised. The industry has noted the Melmen Report and the D.S.I.R. Report. Many individual firms are aware of the challenge, and of the opportunities that lie ahead, and are taking steps to develop their design and research resources. The D.S.I.R. has stated its readiness to consider proposals to support research and development on whatever scale is likely to lead to results of value to the nation as a whole, and that statement would apply to the machine tool industry.
In this section, I believe that the rôle of the Government is widespread. Hon. Members are aware that it was through the National Research and Development Corporation that the Hovercraft was sponsored—and the House will welcome the news that that machine will now travel at 60 miles an hour. Other developments are on a scale so vast that they will have to be sponsored by the Government, as both sides of the House will probably agree. Atomic energy is one example, supersonic flight may well be another, and space research—about which a Question was asked this afternoon—may be a third.
A fourth factor that I wish to bring to the attention of the House is the risk of capital development, particularly for the smaller private firms; but they have to take a risk at some stage in their development if they are to survive. I have had the opportunity of meeting the managements of many of them—managements that have had to take difficult decisions as a matter of their own judgment. If they are operating an

old process, producing a product of which the quality is known, and producing it, perhaps, with old equipment and low overheads, they may be reluctant to take a risk. It must be appreciated that risks have to be taken in private industry, and that failure may result in bankruptcy.
Many small firms have limited capital resources. My own experience has been with a small company, but with a larger group behind it. I have had the responsibility of assessing markets. Some projects in the private sector may take five or six years to develop, and one does not know whether the product has a market or not. It means laying down a factory, and having to estimate the break-even point. When the factory is up, one has months of operating below full volume, and incurring operating losses which, unless a firm has adequate capital resources, mean that it will face a very difficult time. It is that risk that makes the industrial associations supporting the smaller firms call for more Government encouragement.
A fifth and very important point is the quality of investment, because it is quality that counts. Quality of investment is more important than the expenditure of the money itself. We should consider the relationship between technology capital investment and productivity. Today, there are exciting developments relating to new techniques going on throughout industry. One instance is the heavy forge and press industry, in which many firms in my area are engaged. A good example of development in that industry is the production of boiler drums for the new and larger power stations. Hitherto, the drums have been made in forges and presses, but the new power stations demand such vast boiler drums that it would be almost impossible to erect a forge capable of making them. The solution has come from another industry; the welding industry has stepped in.
In the steel industry a new process, of which we have heard particularly in the last few days, is that of continuous casting. That process has been operated on the non-ferrous side for many years, but the challenge has been in the continuous casting of steel. Many firms have tried this principle. For the information of hon. Members, I would mention that the


basic principle of steel making is to melt steel in a furnace, cast it into an ingot, put the ingot into a soaking pit and reduce it to a reasonable size for finish-rolling in a cogging mill, which is an expensive piece of capital equipment.
The alternative is the continuous casting plant, which involves pouring steel through a water-cooled jacket and extracting that steel in the appropriate size for finish-rolling; it may be 4 in. square or some other convenient shape. The main point, so far as we are concerned, is that the capital cost of a continuous casting plant could well be one-third to one-fifth of the cost of an equivalent cogging mill.
This illustrates the lessons which are learned in many other industries. First, we should acknowledge the work of research associations which have been assisted financially by D.S.I.R. We should acknowledge another factor, that the only country which is operating this process more effectively than we are is the Soviet Union, and her main advantage has been the scale of the operations in that country. Russian scientists have been in this country and have said that it is easier continuously to cast large sections of steel than the smaller sections, which we have been trying to handle in our own continuous casting plants on a pilot scale. The consequence of this is most interesting. Continuous casting could be the method most suitable for the smaller works. To make a product, the large works as we know it now may not be as necessary in ten years' time as is the case now.
I should also like to refer to other developments sponsored and added by the research organisations. For instance, there is oxygen injection for steel melting. In a furnace it is possible to raise capacity by from 30 to 50 per cent. by the injection of oxygen. That has faced some steel firms with surplus melting capacity and not enough rolling mill capacity with which to process that steel. It so happens that continuous casting provides a reasonable alternative, and this is already happening in this country, in the United States of America and in Russia.
Another process which is of interest is extrusion, which has been developed by our research associations and companies. It is another means by which

one gets a finished product for less capital expenditure, provided that this process is properly developed for the use by the firms which might wish to apply it.
The House should also be aware of some of the advances in automation, particularly as regards forges and rolling mills. In Sheffield, in the research department there, there is now an automatic electronically-controlled manipulator for forging which could revolutionise forging as an industry. Already, techniques are being applied to the automatic programming and manipulation of our rolling mills, thereby eliminating much of the essential labour.
One other point that I would mention in this field is the whole revolution which is taking place in engineering itself. An engineering assembly, whether it be a car engine or a pump, is essentially an assembly of small components which can be made by a variety of methods. The old basic method was to machine that component out of the solid or perhaps from a rough casting or forging. This involved costly machining operations. The use of a machine in a machine shop involves vast capital equipment. The new technological approach is to remove and reduce those machining operations if possible, and to use more accurate casting, sintering, forging and fabricating processes. The result is that to make an end-product there is no need to invest in a complete machine shop, with the result that it is possible to make the end-product with less capital outlay. New techniques therefore lead to great advances in productivity and greater efficiency for less capital investment.
From my own experience, I would say that British industry has been more ingenious in applying these new techniques than have many of our competitors. We should be proud of the ingenuity of many of our technicians. I would say, therefore, that in the light of these new developments, the comparison of statistics as applied to ourselves and to other countries can be most misleading, because it is the nature and the quality of capital investment which is so vital in the future.
I should like hon. Members also to consider the impact of the application of these modern techniques on industry and people. In industry, there are two contrary trends. One is that of mechanisation and automation, which, of necessity,


would increase capital investment. The other is of new processes, techniques and designs which will reduce the capital investment necessary to make a given end product. But, whatever the outcome, it is the view of many people that it will make it possible to manufacture our own products in smaller factories; it will make works management easier; it will make ordinary industrial problems of communication easier, and there is more than a possibility that it will enable smaller units to return to their own.
At the same time, new technologies have their effect on people, such as workers in our factories, because they enable them to carry out simpler and cleaner operations and to work in cleaner factories. My own experience has been in the foundry industry, and I would say that new processes have made it possible for the foundry industry to become much cleaner.
In moving this Amendment, I have tried to cover various points. I have tried to outline the nature of the scientific and technological challenge in the next decade. I have tried to relate that to the standard of living, to capital formation, and to compare the figures of this country with those of other countries. I have tried to outline and define the rôle of the Government and private industry with regard both to capital investment and to research and development in a modern capitalist economy. I have emphasised some of the risks of capital investment, particularly so far as they affect smaller firms. I have tried to illustrate the technological change particularly in its relationship to the quality of capital investment. Finally, I have indicated its effect on the people in our industries and cities.
The purpose of this Amendment is to draw attention to the problem of capital investment and the quality of capital investment in the hope that this will lead to a constructive debate. I accept that in debating Supply it is the aim, and rightly so, to control and examine expenditure particularly in the public sector, but I feel—and I hope that other hon. Members will feel—that capital investment is essential for our future prosperity. Its need is accepted in the public sector. I would ask for greater encouragement for capital investment in the private

sector in years to come. I would emphasise the need for examining the quality of capital investment and for encouraging technological research in industry so that we can develop those processes to bring about future prosperity, for it is in developing the application of these processes that our future lies.
I would draw attention to the need, through taxation policy, which, I realise, is outside the scope of this debate—such as increased investment allowances, or a guarantee of continuity over a number of years of those investment allowances, or by means of grants or other remissions of taxation—to encourage capital investment, to encourage the training of technologists within industry to operate these new processes and techniques and to encourage research and development so that those new processes and techniques which will bring about our prosperity in the future can be practically applied in our industries.
The main responsibility of the Government is to provide the right climate for investment and to leave the opportunities for private industry and public sector industry to exploit.

4.16 p.m.

Mr. H. Rhodes: I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) on having moved this Amendment. This is a subject on which the House could well spend a great deal of time. I am reminded of the day on which we were discussing the Second Reading of the Coal Nationalisation Act, when I received a letter from a correspondent who, after explaining that the sample of coal that he had obtained was so bad, concluded by saying that he did not think that what he had to say would have a great deal of influence but that, at any rate, it had given him an opportunity to let off steam, which was more than his boiler would do on his "adjectival" coal.
The hon. Member for Hallam, while being highly technical in many respects, stated the need which is recognised by industry at large. However, before dealing with one or two specific points, I should like to go over the ground of the last eighteen months and to refer to the action of the Government and its


impact in this connection. The technique of encouraging consumer goods expenditure is well known and understood by the Government. To mention but a few aspects of this technique, there are the reduction of Purchase Tax and Income Tax, the lifting of restrictions on hire purchase, the reduction of the Bank Rate and a policy which encourages banks to grant personal loans. Any one or all of these encouragements gives the green light to people to spend money. Sentiment is created. The Stock Exchange becomes "bullish" and the phenomenon of rising share values is familiar to all of us.
The last round of this sort of thing began in November, 1958, and the result has been a consumer goods boom until now. The Government hoped, rightly—this is not a political speech as such—that capital investment would keep pace with the relaxations affecting consumer goods. Until April, 1959, there was no appreciable increase in investment in capital equipment. It will be remembered by those who have studied the matter that the slow response was caused by a large amount of unused capacity in manufacturing industry and it was only when this unused capacity seemed likely to be taken up that manufacturers began to think about ordering more equipment.
When business, is good, the machines in the factories, although they have done their time, can bring extra profits for a few more years. Therefore, investment tends to go into the enlargement of the unit and not into replacement. If business is bad, the machinery is kept because there is very often no money to change it. If the pattern of the economy is to be set by stimulation of consumer goods production because of unused capacity in manufacturing industry, then there will be a time lag, while manufacturing capacity is being taken up, before the placing of orders for new machines; but at that time the economy is stretched, everyone is employed, there is difficulty in obtaining machinery, anyhow, because of long delivery dates, and when the machines are introduced there is often difficulty in planning them so that they can be properly employed.
As the picture has unfolded over the years, we have seen this happen at the

psychological moment when the Government have decided to cut back. Credit is squeezed. There is apprehension in business circles, as there is today. A slowing down of investment takes place, and we are back again where we were when the boom began. But we have more capacity, more potentially unused capacity, to be taken up when the next round of stimulation begins.
Investment in capital equipment is a long-term business. It is a full-time job for those responsible in industry. The hon. Member for Hallam spoke about the small firm. I have been engaged in business for nearly forty years, and throughout all that time there has never been a year, including the years between the wars, when I have not put something into the factory in terms of new machines. There has never been a time when I have not mortgaged my future profits in order to install new machines.
I do not myself object to this up-and-down process, because I understand it. I do not come into the market to buy machines when delivery dates are long. I come into the market when delivery dates are short. I am now considering where I should place my orders, when this boom is spent, whether I am justified in placing them here or whether I am forced by circumstances to place them abroad. I regret to say that for next year and 1962 I am forced to place 60 per cent. of my orders abroad. Clumsily, perhaps, but, nevertheless, out of my own experience of something I am doing from day to day, I will do my best to explain what I mean.
It stands to common sense that one should be able to invest one's money when it can be laid out to the best advantage, whether it be in raw materials or in machines. I recall some remarks of a man who buys the wool in my business. When prices were down, nearly twelve months ago, he said to me, "It is a singular thing that a man cannot borrow money when wool is at 48d. per lb. but he can borrow as much as he likes when it is at 80d. per lb." This is pertinent for capital investment, too.
Productivity must be constant. It is a job not only for the industrialists, but for the Government, too. To illustrate my point, I will refer to the situation in the cotton industry, the neighbouring industry to mine. I opposed the Cotton


Industry Act on many grounds. I opposed the suggestion that re-equipment grants should be given. The Government put up enough money to persuade about half the industry to go out of business. During the Recess, I went round some of the areas to see what things were like.
Many mills are closed. The windows are going out as a result of boys throwing stones, and grass has already started to grow in the yards. The "spivs" have departed with their 100 per cent. profit in nine months. The ambitious among the executives who have retired have now gone to St. Annes-on-Sea, Rhos-on-Sea, and places like that, fulfilling their ambitions. The ones who had the courage to stop in are doing very well. They are making pots of money and, incidentally, no longer do the union leaders come to lobby us in this building. Prices have shot up. Goods have been in short supply. Indeed, ugly and dark suggestions have been made that we should allow a few more cotton piece goods to come from Hong Kong because everything is in short supply. That is the picture presented by that wonderful intervention in terms of capital assistance for an industry.
Foreign observers coming to this country are surprised at the attitude of many astute managers and firms who are remaining in the industry. In the main, management is saying, "How shall we equip?" Foreign observers say, "What you ought to be doing is thinking in terms of what you are going to equip for".
The Government have a big part to play, before it is too late, in creating the necessary conditions and stimulating the right policies. The question of what the Government are going to do about long-term Asiatic competition comes to mind.
Many intelligent men in industry say that it is impossible to find machines in this country if run on a two-shift basis which will enable them to break even in term of cost of the end-product with the machines which they have already written down to nothing. This is a sad commentary on the times. They say, "How are we to equip? Where are we to look for the machines?" If the Government give the money to re-equip,

the first thing that should be decided is what the industry is to re-equip for; otherwise, in a few years' time, we shall find a repetition of the problem which we face at the moment. It may be that the Government would do very well to go to certain industries, not merely the cotton industry, and consider with them the desirability of hammering out a policy to ensure that investment is well planned on a long-term basis.
Let us consider another industry. We have heard in the House, and we receive in our post week by week, very powerful propaganda on behalf of the shipping industry. There is not a Member here who does not look at such propaganda. We have been told that flags of convenience have been the real reason for the decline of British shipping. No adequate reason has been given as to why the British merchant fleet, which in 1939 amounted to 26 per cent. of the world total of 68 million tons, fell proportionately by 1959 to 16 per cent. of the world total of 125 million tons. This is a matter of capital investment of the first order. This is our lifeblood. It may be that flags of convenience have played a part, but no adequate explanation has been given as to why our total tonnage is 16 per cent. against a world increase of 51 per cent.
Norway disproves most of the argument about flags of convenience. Most of the growth in shipping during the last five years has taken place proportionately in Norway. Norway's tonnage was 5 million in 1949, 7 million in 1955 and is now 11 million. Norway is taxed quite heavily in proportion to the rest of Europe, but it has increased its percentage by 120 per cent. in two years, two-and-a-half times the rate of the world increase and eight times our own rate. Eighty per cent. of Norway's fleet is under ten years old, and the reason is that Norway had a policy. It recognised the changing needs in shipping. It recognised the need for new types of ships and ship-owners.
Industrialists all over the world were tired of the wild fluctuations in voyage rates. So the Norwegians anticipated events and invested in the type of ship to suit the times, giving long-term charter rates. Their policy was right. Policy here should be hammered out between Government and industry. Introducing investment allowances in one Budget and knocking them off in another is no substitute for a policy.
I now want to comment on one or two things that we should do. The hon. Member for Hallam spoke in general terms about the encouragement that should be given to scientific research. In many of our industries there is far too much scientific research which is badly applied. Often they are outside the field of practical affairs. Often they are hidebound. Often they become detached from the people engaged in industry and they do not make a serious contribution to the breaking through of new techniques. I say that quite deliberately in criticism of some research associations I know.
It is time that the Government took particular notice of what contribution research associations and machine makers are making to the productivity of the machine. Unless we increase the productivity of the machine by 2½ to 3 per cent. per annum we will not be able to keep pace with the increases in wages and costs that are put on the cost of the product as years go by. An increase in productivity should be one of the prime responsibilities of research associations and the Board of Trade.
I suggest that when the Treasury sends out its questionnaires to industrialists, instead of requesting them to say what they have done or what they intend to do, which can be altered by how the managing director, or whoever fills in the form, is feeling that particular morning, whether he has a complaint on his table and is down in the dumps and thinks that it is not worth stopping in the industry, or whether he has been congratulated or has just received an order —there is a tremendous element of sentiment here—the accent should be on the productivity of the machines also, in which an industrialist is investing to replace other machines, or, if the machines are purchased for increased capacity, what is gained in productivity compared with the rest of the plant.
I have been doing some investigation recently to try to ascertain the relative productivity in many countries of the world of machines I use. Do hon. Members realise that there are only two organisations in Europe, one in the Outer Seven, in Switzerland, and one in France, that are able to state the productivity of any range of machines in my industry in any part of the world?

One cannot get this information in this country, although the industries are crying out for such information.
I might be told that it is up to the private investor himself to get this information, but this is something that should be done by the combined efforts of all industries supported by the Government.
In that way, the Board of Trade would have an automatic check on every request submitted by applicants for the entry of foreign machines. We know what a pantomime goes on in the Board of Trade when somebody asks for permission to import a foreign machine and the arguments that are put up to block first-class machines coming in from abroad simply because they might look to be the same, or a manufacturer here states that he can make one just as good. I could tell the House of some of the experiences that I have had during the last few years in terms of the inefficiency of some machinery makers here in comparison with the way the makers of machines in Switzerland, Germany, France, and Belgium are setting about the job of productivity of the machine. I ask the Government to take this matter to heart and give our machinery makers a chance by enabling capital investment to be a constant thing.
My last suggestion is for a recasting of the system or basis of depreciation. We have arguments from year to year about initial allowances, investment allowances and the rest, because the Government reserve the right to be able to knock the allowances off or to put them on in the hope that they will encourage investment. But such action rarely encourages investment at the time when it is wanted most. To be effective it should be constant. I ask the Government to think over the basis of depreciation allowances, too.
I agree with the hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Green) and one or two of his colleagues on the benches opposite who put up some of these points following the 1959 Budget. If industrialists could write off their machines as and when they wish, it would be a great step forward.
The Government should be planning long-term capital investment for productivity. They should be looking at the conditions which now militate


against machinery makers. There needs to be continuous and constructive thought in the development of the machine to give increased productivity. If the Government will do that, good will have come out of this debate.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) has made several references to the shipping industry. I do not think that the unique position in which that industry stands is generally appreciated. It is not simply a question of flags of convenience. There is flag discrimination, as well. To give one illustration concerning flags of discrimination, if agricultural produce is to be taken from the United States under Public Law 480 to India, for example, it must be carried in American shipping. This is very restrictive to British shipping.

Mr. Rhodes: That does not make any difference to my argument. The Norwegians have done it. Flags of convenience do not apply in their case.

Mr. Skeet: One has to realise that not merely Norway but the United Kingdom itself is a flag of convenience. For American tankers, the United Kingdom is a flag of convenience for the purpose of the relative taxation. It is not, however, that point alone which needs to be considered. One has to consider the overall effect of the three points to which I have referred, which put the shipping industry in its rather unique position, as a result of which it can be argued—not today, but on other occasions—that it should be singled out for special treatment. That, however, is a deviation from the main point introduced today by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) concerning capital investment in industry.
My hon. Friend raised the extremely good point about the quality of investment. One is not concerned primarily about overall investment use for which the funds are employed. What one must endeavour to do in 1960 is to try to spot the winners for the 1970s and to ensure that the money which is available is canalised into those industries which can turn it to the greatest use, either in improving our standard of living or in

increasing our exports to overseas countries.
One or two of the winners have been the motor cars and aircraft for the United States. A great deal of money has gone into these industries. One looks with considerable anxiety at the amount of money which has been poured into the nationalised industries. To mention one of them, in the case of coal this has meant the redeployment of labour and less coal for more money invested.
In the private sector, there has been expansion year after year. It is instructive to find that in the post-war years, capital investment has gone primarily into iron and steel, refining capacity, petrochemical development and certain branches of engineering.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Where, in the hon. Member's view, is this country suffering from an excessive level of investment in the basic industries, in coal, steel, transport and the fuel industries generally, as compared with countries like Western Germany, France or the Soviet Union, which are going ahead much faster?

Mr. Skeet: To deal with the nationalised industries, only a small part of the steel industry is nationalised. If we deal with the other basic industries such as coal, electricity and gas, I would have said that in the United Kingdom a little too much money was being devoted to those sectors. In the Soviet Union, there is already a capital movement away from investment in coal to investment in oil and natural gas. Taking a long-term projection up to 1951 to 1965, and, as encompassed by the recent Soviet seven-year programme, Russia plans to expand coal production two-fold, oil by five and a half times and natural gas by the much vaster figure of twenty-five times.
What the Soviet Union is doing is to redeploy its investment resources in what it considers will be the available and most productive resources in future years. What we in the United Kingdom appear to be doing is to spend a vast sum in the coal industry and it is doubtful whether we are getting value for our money.
I do not, however, want to be led too far away from my main theme of the quality of investment. In 1938, the United Kingdom's refining capacity was


2½ million tons. Now, it is 42·7 million tons and Milford Haven will add another 4½ million tons. That has been extremely advantageous not merely because refining lends itself to automation, but also because it substantially improves the balance of payments of the United Kingdom. No longer do we have to import all the refined products. They are produced here, and, of course, are sold even in the Common Market itself.
It is also very important that there should be chemical developments associated with refining capacity. I do not think that many figures about this are available, but I think we can say that investment has been quite colossal, by the several firms concerned in it: I.C.I.. Shell Chemicals, the International Synthetic Rubber Company, the British Hydrocarbon Chemicals (Associating B.P. & Distillers), Courtaulds and others. We are finding that costs are being reduced over the course of time by substituting the newer products for the old. Plastics production is going ahead rapidly.
It is rather interesting to note this, that if we take the current seven-year plan in the Soviet Union, that is, from 1959 to 1965, the sector of industry which they have set aside for particular attention is that relating to plastics, synthetic fibres and synthetic rubber. It is interesting that of the whole of the investment that is going into chemicals, 50 per cent. is being spent on synthetic materials. It is a sum which is equivalent to all the investment in chemicals in the previous seven-year programme. This is an indication of the measure of the importance the Soviet Union attaches to synthetic materials. Some of the extremely valuable fibres come from wood pulp, such as rayon and Tricel, or from coal or oil, such as Courtelle, nylon and terylene.
I happened to read the other day something which I think throws a new light on appreciating the situation with which we shall be faced of the teeming millions who will be living on the globe towards the end of the century. Manufacturers have to face the situation of what they are going to invest today in order to cope with that problem. What I read was this:
There will be further marked increases in the production and uses of man-made fibres, whereas the production and demand for the

natural fibres is not likely to increase significantly, and may even fall somewhat as the demand for food by the increasing population becomes more insistent. The natural fibres, cotton and wool, compete with food for arable land, whereas the cellulosic man-made fibres are produced from trees, bamboo, and the like, growing on land and in climates unsuitable for food production. Moreover, the tall trees make use of the third dimension to a much greater extent than do cotton plants and sheep. The synthetic polymer fibres are derived from oil or coal which also makes considerable use of the third dimension, mainly under the earth.
I am saying that it is the responsibility of industry to look well ahead. I do not think that it is any unnecessary congratulation of British industry that it is at present, so far, for instance, as petrochemicals are concerned, the leader in Europe. The Soviet Union is beginning to appreciate this. That is why the Soviet Union is devoting such vast resources to petrochemicals under the present plan. What industry is looking ahead to is to discover to what new uses can be put the world's resources of raw materials. Are we to cover the land to secure either food or ingredients for industry? Or are we going to convert to valuable use the coal which lies beneath in the "third dimension"? What can be secured from outside to add to the "synthetic" resources of the United Kingdom is, of course, oil.
I would also mention another very important factor, because we are going further and further into the nuclear age: there has been extremely extensive development here. It is only right to say that we must experiment to get ahead. Calder Hall and the high temperature nuclear reactors are very valuable experiments. We must look at them most carefully. We should also consider the amount which is being spent in the Soviet Union on research into new processes, new methods and new materials, such as vanadium, boron, tantalum, niobium—these metals are now becoming available in increasing quantities and have special properties of particular value in modern industry.
If we do fall behind in our fundamental research we can be certain of one thing, that the United States and the Soviet Union will move well ahead of us. I feel that dynamic management, efficiency in administration, and continued profits, are essential to the continued progress in the development of our resources. Progress must be made. It would be a great disservice to British


industry if we were placed in the position where the skill of the few were not appreciated by many people who do not understand the contribution which research is making to our general welfare.
I would say that as we do move ahead we have to be perfectly certain that the funds which are available are turned to the best processes. I think that it is perfectly right that from time to time in this House we should examine Government expenditure, and that certain Government aid should be granted to industry. I think that aid should be given on this basis, that capital is not available or that it will be used to give increased employment in a given area. If there is redeployment of resources in private industry, industry should look after itself, even though money may be voted by this House. There are captains of industry of great skill and judgment who can be aided and guided, but they should be left to develop their own resources provided such a course is consistent with public welfare. That, I think, is the view generally taken on this side of the House, and it is, indeed, the policy which made this country great long before the Labour Party was ever heard of.
One further thing that we must bear in mind and that is the joint approach to development. How gratified I was to find that A. Reyroll and C. A. Parsons have agreed to working in joint consultation on generator development. Thus they can share their capital resources in research. How glad I was to find a Minister travelling over to France and Western Germany to see how we can link the United Kingdom in with them in the development of supersonic airliners and possibly of aircraft which will take off with a vertical lift. We cannot encompass all these things ourselves. Arrangements can be made between companies, or perhaps increasing aid following negotiations at higher levels. I think that this is possibly the best way forward.
One additional point. When it comes to the question of increasing the Bank Rate, I do not consider that very large companies are affected by it particularly, as their scheduled programmes must be carried through. I do not think that it would interfere with the board room of

I.C.I., British Petroleum, or the Royal Dutch Shell group, but I do think that possibly it would have a very distinctive bearing on a small company which might be short of funds. As industry is at present made up primarily of small companies, that means that, in our development, we should give them the resources which are essential for their development and the country's in future years. The Radcliffe Report has had a look at this. There would appear to be a gap. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider it most seriously, because in this country we depend—now that we are on the threshold of the Common Market and the E.F.T.A.—on the continued success and ability of our small companies.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. John Diamond: I have very much enjoyed listening to the hon. Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet) with the exception of one remark which he made. I am sure that, on reconsideration, he would not want to try to repeat his remark that this country was great before the Labour Party was ever heard of, because it was not great before those whom the Labour Party represent were ever heard of. They took part in making it great and we are all here to represent others.
I am sure, therefore, that the hon. Member did not mean to cast an unnecessary political slant on that part of his speech. The last thing I want to do is to controvert anything that he said, because I was delighted to hear, especially coming from an hon. Member on the benches opposite, a speech which made it perfectly clear that the only way to increase productivity is to plan the whole of our investment on the Russian style.

Mr. Skeet: No.

Mr. Diamond: I am a great planner myself and I accept entirely the implication of what the hon. Member said—that if we want to divert resources from one kind of investment to another we need power. We need a Government wishing to do it and having the power to do it.
The present Government realise that and when they wanted to increase productivity in the public sector they took the immdiate measures open to them to do so. Last year's Budget was an example


of this. Money was poured into that sector of industry because the Government have power there to control the rate of investment and of new development, but the Government are virtually powerless in the private sector. The problem which the hon. Member for Willesden, East and I share is how to get the private sector to make more investment and investment of the right kind.
I shall assume that nobody here will argue that at present new investment is adequate, or that it is continuously adequate. The plain fact remains that we are lagging miles behind those with whom we would naturally compare our achievements, that is, similarly placed West European countries, both in terms of new investment in industry, and in terms of productivity. We are lagging miles behind and unless something is done we shall be left so far behind that we shall never catch up.
This is a problem which does not worry me on the ground that we are totally unable to look after ourselves at the moment, or unable to provide an adequate standard of living, but it should worry us when we think of the future. We shall be unable to continue to make and export at a rate sufficient to maintain the necessary increase in our standard of living unless we put much more continuous and much more serious effort into our investment of funds, both in quality and in quantity.
We have failed to do this year after year. I have not the figures with me, because I was not fully aware that the number of hon. Members wishing to catch Mr. Speaker's eye would be as slight as it has turned out to be. But in the last four years industrial productivity has hardly gone up at all. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] This stems from inadequate investment. The hon. Member for Willesden, East recognises this. The Motion recognises it and I am assuming that the common ground from which we all start is how to increase investment, and that means in the private sector, because there is no problem about increasing it in the public sector.
The hon. Member for Willesden, East wants to divert investment from certain aspects of the public sector to the private sector, but he does not say how he would do it. One can cut down investment in the public sector, of course, but how

can it be increased in the private sector? The Government try to do this by fiscal methods. This was debated on last year's Finance Bill and will be debated again on the Finance Bill this year and, therefore, I will not elaborate on it now. What was done last year was stated at the time to be inadequate, and it has proved inadequate because industrial investment showed no signs of increase until very recent times. That increase has been due to the pressure of demand from increased consumption and not to the fiscal inducement in last year's Finance Bill, otherwise the results would have been far greater.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Reginald Maudling): There was a rather dramatic change after last October.

Mr. Diamond: That is a political remark which no doubt has its appeal to those who do not stop to think about it, but to anybody who does stop to think the suggestion that that single event in October could effect immediately vast investment plans is utter nonsense.
Anybody who works in this field knows that investment plans take months and frequently years to mature. Investment can easily be put off, as the Government have succeeded in doing through the Chancellor's remarks. Investment can be put off without doing anything except making just a vague threat. It is much more difficult to keep people on than to put them off, and one cannot suddenly turn from a policy of no investment to one of large investment. It takes time to plan, to procure space, to obtain all the machines required, to get everything co-ordinated, so that there is a steadily increasing production.

Sir John Barlow: What the hon. Member says may be quite true about investment on a large scale, but after a certain event last October, to which my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has referred, many small people decided to do bits of improvements and to install small machines and do this, that and the other which, cumulatively, resulted in the employment of an enormous number of people.

Mr. Diamond: I cannot accept that. We have northing like sufficient information. The information we have is collected not by the Government, but by


private industry. Requests are sent to manufacturers to state their investment programmes and these are published once a quarter. It is clear from that information that this was a slowly developing process. It was not something which happened suddenly, and the hon. Member will be aware that even an accumulation of small men must be a very large accumulation before it makes an impact.
This is especially true when it is realised that about half of the total investment in the country is represented by about 500 firms, the other half being covered by the industry of the entire country. It is a very small number of firms indeed that affect the picture. To say that a great many small men have been thinking about it and saying, "The Conservatives have been returned to power and now we shall be able to plan the economy on the Russian style" as the hon. Member for Willesden, East suggested, is not realistic.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: Output per man went up 6 per cent. last year compared with the previous year, as the Economic Survey shows, and that is a real increase in productivity, which is what we all want.

Mr. Diamond: I thought that we were all agreed that there has not been sufficient increase in productivity, and this stems from inadequate investment. If the hon. Member thinks that the increase has been enough, we leave it to him. The House, the Government, the hon. Member for Willesden, East and the Motion are all concerned to increase investment in the private sector. The Government already have the power to do it in the public sector. The question is how to do it in the private sector and, as I have said, what the Government have attempted to do by fiscal means has been quite inadequate.
The Government should follow commonsense Conservative business principles and allow every business man for Income Tax purposes to run his own business in his own way in all respects. The one respect in which they now prevent that happening is in connection with depreciation allowances. That is the only way in which the Inland Revenue interferes. It says, "Your profit is as you declare it, but in this respect we

shall decide in our wisdom what is the proper rate of depreciation you will allow", and we then have all this juggling with initial and investment allowances.
The Government could without any great expense—especially at the present time, when the allowance already amounts to so much in the first year—give that Conservative freedom to businessmen to run their businesses in their own way so that those anxious to develop could develop. We cannot make a businessman want to invest, but those businessmen who do want to invest should be given freedom to do so. I should have thought that this was advice which would be very welcome on the benches opposite. It is supported, as the President of the Board of Trade knows, by twenty years' experience in one of the Scandinavian countries—Sweden, I think it is—where it has proved very successful during that time.
I hope that the Government will, in due course, give further consideration to this very sensible and encouraging Conservative suggestion which surely should be followed up by hon. Members opposite. If they are not prepared to do that, they might think of planning investment in the private sector in the way that I shall suggest.
All the instruments which the Government use are far too vague. The fiscal method suggested is far too vague and works on far too wide a field. Increasing investment at the end of the process of increasing consumption is far too vague and too long delayed. The Government, knowing that they must increase investment and knowing that we are falling behind all the time, should do what private industry has, to a small extent, set itself out to do by finding out what are the investment plans of various manufacturers. The Government should concentrate on those big firms—about 500 of them—who have half the investments of the private sector of the country in their hands and discuss with them individually their investment plans.
That is not administratively impossible when dealing with such a small number as 500. They would then be free from this need either to push investment by every possible inducement so hard that everyone is attracted and there is immediately a great shortage because too


many people are asking for the same thing at the same time, or, alternatively, not to push it, in which case the reason which resulted in hon. Gentlemen opposite staying on the benches opposite will continue to apply, namely, that being a conservative-minded nation and a conservative-minded business community they will continue to be conservative-minded in terms of replacing plant. This, I am satisfied, stems from our national attitude.
We are by nature a conservative country. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The election proved it. I have looked at the figures and I conclude that this has been so for some time. We are by nature a conservative-minded country and we look much too conservatively on a number of things, including investment. This is bad for the country, bad for the manufacturers and bad for the businessmen concerned. They should, therefore, be encouraged in an appropriate way to invest more and more and by a detailed mechanism, not this wide, vague encouragement and then discouragement, one year saying we will have more initial allowances and twelve months later saying, "I do not know what I am going to do, but I give you warning that I shall do something." That is much worse than saying a particular thing.
A threat is much worse than saying, "We are going to put up the Bank Rate, or ask for special deposits. We are going to do one thing or another." To give a warning, "We do not know what we are going to do, but we may do something at any minute" is very discouraging. To give encouragement one year by increasing allowances in the Finance Bill and the next year to discourage by threats of something undefined is not a satisfactory method.
I am sure that the only satisfactory way of planning investment in the private sector is by what the hon. Member for Willesden, East and I both want—the planning of the investment programme of the private sector so as to have individual discussions with boards, financial directors and others concerned of the 500 companies which have the control of half of the industrial investment of the country in their hands, and to discuss with them how to accelerate it—they cannot impose a pattern of investment upon it. That is not the hon. Gentle-

man's idea. He sits on the benches opposite. He is a Conservative and has, therefore, not worked out the implications of his argument. The hon. Gentleman says "Look at Russia; look how they devote their resources to the things that pay best."

Mr. Skeet: I was saying that we lead in the plastic manufacture in Europe and in many other lines. The Soviet Union is in fact, copying us in its current seven-year programme. I have pointed out that that is what we must be extremely careful of tonight. The hon. Gentleman must not impute ideas to me which I have not expressed.

Mr. Diamond: The last thing that I want to do is to impute ideas which the hon. Member has not expressed. I doubt whether he has thought thorn out. I was only trying to carry his argument to the logical conclusion and to show how to achieve what he and I both want, that is, an increase of investment in the private sector.
The only satisfactory way of doing this is by a detailed method—not a wide and broad one—of discussing with each one of these large 500 firms their investment programmes over the next two, three and four years. They know the figures. They work them out well in advance. Let them inform the Board of Trade what their investment plans are. Let the Board of Trade study them and say, "This is too much; this is too little; this should be expanded; this should be delayed." That is all that is required. Then we should have a detailed investment programme within the capacity of the nation, which is greater than we have now and which would avoid the ups and downs which are so destructive to the mentality of all boards of directors and to the free flow of machines which bring down prices. In that way, we shall avoid all that and have a reliable, continuing increasing flow of investment which is surely what the nation requires.

Mr. A. P. Costain: Is the hon. Gentleman anticipating that the Government should discuss this with the boards of directors and that over the next five years it should be the laws of the Medes and Persians? Is the hon. Gentleman proposing that we should have further controls brought in by the backdoor?

Mr. Diamond: No. I am not advocating bringing in further controls. I was suggesting that the boards of directors of companies of this size, being intelligent, constructive-minded and anxious to increase the prosperity of their companies and, therefore, the prosperity of the country—men who know a great deal—are always denied the one important thing on which their major investment decisions depend: "What are the other chaps doing? What are the total investment demands of our colleagues on the boards of other companies?"
That is the one thing which they do not know and about which they have to make a guess. Let them be told what is the total investment programme of these companies so that each one may accelerate or decelerate as the need arises. In that way there will be a continuing flow of investment and the demands of both the hon. Member for Willesden. East and I can be satisfied.

5.20 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Hirst: I do not know whether I have been able to follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) as well as I normally can, because he appears to have walked all round the wicket without ever finding the pitch. Certainly, he was far too gloomy. I shall have some points of criticism to make but, after all, the Amendment is critical in a sense, so I give the hon. Gentleman that part of his argument. At the same time, he did not pay sufficient tribute to what Conservative Governments have done towards bringing about the very same, sensible form of private enterprise on which he had the nerve to lecture us as being desirable.
My hon. Friend the Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Sir J. Barlow) referred in an intervention to small firms. My evidence, which is fairly good because of the source from which I get it, is that small firms have contributed materially to the upsurge in investment in capital equipment during recent months. There is a considerable amount of information available to us all, and it is available to me in more detail because of my connection with the Federation of British Industries. As the hon. Member for Gloucester said, about half the investment in this country is in small firms,

but, although they represent small units of investment and employment, they add up materially.
The speech which impressed me most, apart from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) in introducing his Amendment, was that of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes); indeed, it was one of the best private enterprise speeches I have heard for a long time. What on earth the hon. Gentleman does with Clause 4 and all that, I cannot think. If he had been here at the moment I would have asked him to examine his conscience, but no doubt he will be with us again in a short time.
However, I think that the hon. Member was not fair to the research associations when he said that so little had been done to ensure that they contributed to increased productivity. There is plenty of evidence to show that they have contributed materially to it. They are well worth backing and it is particularly good to see the development that has taken place where industries have co-operated in their research efforts. This applies particularly to the wool textile industry, about which I speak often in this House.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman on his point about depreciation, and I will return to that in a moment. There is danger of complacency over our increased industrial production because, when compared with that of certain other countries, our position is by no means as rosy as we like to think. Indeed, we are inclined to talk about our own figures without relating them to the world pattern. At the same time it should be realised that much of the great development overseas is due in some part to recovery after the war.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) said in the Budget debate that the rate of increase in the United Kingdom during the last six years has been only 27 per cent., whereas in certain other countries of the Common Market it has been about 63 per cent. The major overall reason for this is that our investment has been too low. It is true that the gross fixed capital formation, excluding housing, in the United Kingdom is around 14 per cent. of the gross national product, whereas it is 20 per cent. in Germany. In passing,


I should point out that when my hon. Friend the Member for Hallam made his comparison he included housing, but it should be excluded.
Both my hon. Friend the Member for Hallam and the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne drew attention to depreciation in its relation to capital investment, and they were right so to do. I have felt for some time that we must face this difficult problem financially, relating depreciation allowances to replacement rather than to historic values for taxation purposes.
Although I can see the attraction to the Government from the financial angle, it is a little dangerous to make frequent changes in investment and initial allowances. Industry finds these changes confusing and tiresome. This point has been discussed in the Budget debate and also in various recent financial articles and it has been suggested that it would be much better to abolish all these allowances and, at the same time, eliminate the Profits Tax. This would leave industry in a position which would be attractive for this kind of development, being taxed at about 40 per cent. or 41 per cent. instead of the 52 per cent. at which it is now taxed.
I have been somewhat critical of Profits Tax because I feel that it is in many ways a deterrent. I know very well that research and investment are a first charge. Moreover, a contributor to Lloyds Bank Review, last April, wrote:
But the lower level of expansion with which we have to content ourselves as a result of the present level of taxation is a reflection on our decision as a nation that we want the Government to spend a quarter of our income on defence, education and the social services. We cannot take such a decision and hope to escape the consequences.
I feel, therefore, that even in this debate we must be true unto ourselves. If we are to ask, as some people have been asking, for increased Government support and expenditure, which is not my own line, we must realise the consequences involved. I would like to see the structure of our taxation so altered as to encourage private industry to do these things for itself, which it could do so much better if given that form of encouragement. However, I do not want to be lectured by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Gloucester on these matters, in view of the record of his party in this connection, and the policy

which he and his hon. Friends are trying to support with such great difficulty.
I support the Amendment. I think that it is too modestly worded, but that it is in the right sense. I think that the Government are going in the right direction and have been doing so all along, in spite of the difficulties that have cropped up from time to time. The only difficulty I see is in taking that extra jump—

Mr. Maudling: Mr. Maudling indicated dissent.

Mr. Hirst: Yes, it is a jump. I can assure my right hon. Friend that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would think it a jump.
I repeat that the only difficulty I see is in taking that extra jump to change the structure of taxation in the way I have asked. If it could be done, I believe that the atmosphere of private industry would be so uplifted that it would encourage research and development far more than would aid in any other direction.

5.28 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence: I have heard some most extraordinary statements, particularly from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet). I am surprised that any intelligent person should take at face value certain statistics emanating either from Pravda, or from the Government of the U.S.S.R., and say, "This is the picture of success", as if there were no failures. After all is said and done, we in this country, with our principle of freedom and with our Parliamentary democracy, advertise our failures, perhaps sometimes a little too much.

Mr. Skeet: Of course, Pravda is not the only source of information. There is also the 1959 Economic Survey of Europe. If the hon. Gentleman has not had an oportunity of referring to that document, I would tell him it will give him much information on the matter. I am only bound to supply my argument, not an understanding of it.

Mr. Bence: As I was saying, we all read various statistics and many inter-national documents. We read about successes in the Soviet Union and about economic attainments in various fields, but we do not read of the mistakes and failures in that country. The Russians


get them and we know that they pay a price for them. Make no mistake about that. We have our failures and everyone knows about them. I admit that Government succeed for a few years in concealing serious failures in Government policy, but, sooner or later, by a stroke of fortune, they come to light because of the activities of Members of Parliament and of the Press.
I have never been one to use the Soviet Union as an example of what I want to see happen in my own country. I am not a supporter of a monolithic society, whether controlled by a group of financiers in the City of London or by a group of politicians. I am surprised that any hon. Member, in a debate in the House, should cite the Soviet Union as a glorious example of the way in which to redeploy investment. If industry in Soviet Russia disobeys it is in serious trouble. I am sure that the average Briton would prefer our concepts—

Mr. Skeet: Mr. Skeet rose—

Mr. Bence: The hon. Gentleman must let other hon. Members make their own speeches. He made an awful speech himself, full of terrible blunders and of frightful implications. We cannot allow him to try to correct himself every few minutes.
I stick to my point that in this country we shall make mistakes but that we shall get over them. We do not need to be told in the House of Commons that the monolithic Russian society is a wonderful example of how things ought to be done. We believe that we can do them by the voluntary principle and by democratic methods.
The hon. Gentleman also made some most extraordinary statements about private investment in the steel industry. Everyone knows that the major investment in the British steel industry was made between 1939 and 1951, and in those years the industry was under public control. The British steel industry came under State control at the outbreak of war and the major capital investment which raised the productive capacity of the industry was done under State sponsorship and control. Everyone knows that. I worked in the British steel industry years before the war and right through the war. We all know that we

could not have produced our steel during the war if millions of pounds had not been spent in expanding and improving the techniques of the industry. It was not done by private investment, but by public investment.
What happened when the British steel industry was denationalised in 1954, after years of expansion of the industry by public money? We now have another period of State expansion of the industry. Whose money is expanding the industry today? What private companies are expanding it? In Scotland, the big steel undertaking is that of Colvilles. Is private enterprise providing the capital there? Not at all. We were told before the election that Colvilles could not raise the money on the open market because of the fear of a Labour Government coming to power.
Why did not the Government, immediately after the election, say to Colvilles, "We want to cut down Government expansion. You said before the election that you could not raise the money on the market because of the fear that a Labour Government would be returned. We have been returned, and you should now raise the money on the market." About £50 million of public money free of interest is needed for investment in the new strip mill in Scotland. We have the same sort of thing on the Clyde. The private enterprise shipbuilders there will not expand unless the Government provide them with £2 million of public investment.
Then, again, there is the British Motor Corporation. It wants to create some new capital with which to build a factory. The corporation is to build a factory in Scotland, but only on the condition that the Government take the initiative and provide the initial capital sum with which to get on with the job.
This is public investment. It is no use people continually saying that the private investor is prepared to find all the money in these great investment enterprises when it is evident that he is not. The great Cunard Company wants £30 million to £50 million to replace the old "Queen" liners with two new Cunarders. Do not let anyone call that private investment. It will not be Cunard investment, but Government investment, because it is public money. Do not let anyone put that on the credit side of the private investor.
The average private investor is not interested in the slightest in investing in new productivity capacity or in new enterprises. If he has some liquid money to invest he looks at those shares that are likely to rise most, pay the highest dividend, or which will give a one for one issue next year. He is not interested in looking for technologists and scientists who have new processes to offer. He is not looking in that direction at all. Let us be quite honest about this.
I wonder how many hon. Members opposite are running round with £½ million looking for clever young scientists and engineering geniuses who are ready with new processes? None at all. They are watching the tape to see which shares are likely to rise and which are likely to fall. We cannot get near the tape when the Stock Exchange reports come through. Therefore, do not let us have this boasting about the private investor. All our major industries are looking to the Government for money.
I welcome the Amendment which has been moved by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn). It is a very good Amendment, and we are very grateful to him for it. I am an engineer myself and I am rather shocked that one of the major problems of the country is that of investment. Here we are, after eighteen months or two years of boom, being told that we are liable to be in balance of payment difficulties. We get prosperity, we import a great deal so that we can manufacture and then reexport, and yet, when we examine the figures, we find that we are paying more for what we import than what we get for our exports.
The sane explanation is that we must pay less for what we import or import less, or we must get a great deal more for what we export or export a great deal more than we do at present. As an engineer, I do not want to export a great deal more goods. I want to produce and manufacture things which, on the world market, will fetch the highest value owing to the material used and the applied skill and labour involved.
I have said this for years in the House. I have in mind two machine tools which I know very well. I have no wish to deprecate a famous firm of machine tool manufacturers. The product which it

makes is a first-class product. It is a machine tool which must weigh two and a half tons. I do not know what its price is today, but in my day it sold for about £6,000. The Swiss made a machine tool which weighed about three tons. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) knows the two machine tools to which I am referring.
The Swiss machine tool, weighing three tons at the most, was being sold at between £18,000 and £25,000 when the British machine tool was selling at £6,000. These are two machine tools used in every factory in Britain. The Swiss have put into the same quantity of raw material, by the application of technical skill and science, something that will bring more in foreign currency and, therefore, more raw material, than a product which we were making in this country and which consumed just as much imported raw material.
That sort of thing has been a factor in our machine tool industry which has done a great deal of damage and has frustrated the expansion and the whole technique of production in many British industries. I do not wish to mention the names of companies, but I could give the names of many companies that have been frustrated for twenty-five years because of the failure of the machine tool industry to match up to the new technologies being devised in Germany and the United States.
I give the industry in which I worked as an example—the motor car industry. We had reached the stage, by 1930, when we had to manufacture nearly every machine tool of a production character that we were using. One will find machine tool manufacturers' machines in nearly every motor plant in Britain, but one will also find great progress in mass production, such as in telecommuter systems, where time and again the machine tool processes have been manufactured and devised by the production unit itself.
What has been the result? I recall seeing a plant with more than 1,000 toolmakers and tool fitters. Twenty per cent. of those men were held purely for the laborious process, in their fashion, of tooling up some basic machine tools that were stripped down from their original manufacturers' concept and built up again by them in the factory. Their applied skill, put into the manufacture of


machine tools in a machine tool production firm, could have produced a far higher rate of production of specialised machine tools than in that plant. I helped to build those machines myself. That sort of thing has certainly checked the motor car industry a little.
I have not seen the Renault plant, but I know of it and have read in technical journals something about its technological processes. Renault is far ahead of anything in this country, both scientifically and technically, although I admit that we are well advanced within the conditions in which we have to work. But we can match up to anybody.
One of the factors which has hit British industry as much as anything has been the failure of the machine tool industry to feed Che industrial processes. I remember that in 1946 two companies came to the Midlands motor company for which I worked. One produced tyres and the other nylon stockings. They came to my firm in the Midlands, as they had probably scoured the machine tool industry, for the manufacture of their necessary tools and die system. We agreed to do it—although we were a motor car plant. We made the dies and tools for moulding nylon stockings. We did it because the machine tool manufacturers had undoubtedly not been prepared themselves to take the risk in that field.
That has been going on in British industry for years. The hon. Member for Willesden, East talked about Russian redeployment of investment from a dying industry, from one that was out of date, into industries coming into prosperity which would meet the demands of the market. But no one believes that if we cut down investment in the railways or in the coal mines by £250 million private enterprise would immediately take it up and start investing in new processes. No Government could guarantee that. Indeed, I suggest—if the future is anything like the past—that if the Government started to cut down public capital expenditure we should soon have tile phenomenon of deflation; money would become tight, trade would get worse and everybody would say, "There is no money. We are unable to do anything." The private investor would get "windy". Instead of there being more investment

in the private sector, there would probably be much less.
If many friends of mine thought that an inflationary process was going on, and that there was to be a cut-back in public investment, they would draw their horses in. In the 1920s we could not do things because we had not the resources. When resources were available in 1930 we could not do these things because we had not the money. The same thing would happen again unless the Government had power to redeploy a cut-back investment from one direction to another. It would be quite reasonable if a cut-back in certain public investments were redirected into investment in the machine tool industry.
It is a pity that in the last four years we spent £100 million on Blue Streak. If the Government had had the will to do so, and had put that money into the machine tool industry and had encouraged more research and scientific development and the employment of the best technicians and scientists, we would have been able to get a higher conversion value out of our labour and raw materials and skill. That is what we all want to do. We do not want to sell goods abroad as cheaply as we possibly can; we want to get the highest in foreign currency that we can for the best product that we can produce. I was never told to produce something that would sell as cheaply as possible, but to produce something that would sell for the highest price. That is what my employers told me.

Mr. F. J. P. Lilley: You are talking a lot of nonsense. Any ordinary business runs itself on an economic basis. What are you talking about?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): Order. The hon. Member had better address the Chair.

Mr. Lilley: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) must surely know that business is run on an economic basis. It is not run on the basis that it is run for one particular side. For example, in Scotland there is now an apprentices' strike. For what purpose? [An HON. MEMBER: "TO get more wages."] To get more wages—for what? For something which they are


not prepared to do and which they are not fit to do. I suggest that the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East should consider the fact that industry—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I did not call the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Mr. Lilley) to make a speech. I thought that he intended to make a short intervention.

Mr. Bence: I thought that the hon. Member was seeking information. He said that I was talking a lot of nonsense when I said that my employers had always taught me, when I was a student apprentice, that the objective of engineering practice was not to provide an article which could be sold as cheaply as possible, but to provide an article which, because of its utilitarian function and design, would attract the highest possible price.
The hon. Member may think that that is nonsense, but that is how I was trained. I remember that in 1920 we produced an article which sold at £47 10s. and which, with improvements in design and quality, by 1936 we were selling at £67. That was good engineering pratice, for we had sold an article at £20 more in a period of slump than we did in a period of boom. It was an article which we sold all over the Commonwealth.
Hon. Members opposite are constantly talking about the great achievements of the Conservative Government. We have heard again today about how the Conservative Government have done this, that and the other, and how they have given us prosperity. Of course, we have prosperity, but I wish that hon. Members opposite would say that, irrespective of the party in power, our prosperity, at rock-bottom, depends on the people who work the industrial and commercial processes of the country. Governments do not create prosperity. It is not their function. Prosperity is created by the people who work and invest in industry, the workers by hand and brain. Those are the people who create the pool of wealth.
The function of Government is not to create wealth, but to see that it is reasonably distributed. In a modern society, it is the function of Government to see that no group neglects our physical and material resources and that there is no

abuse of the technological skills which we have evolved through our educational system and through research at universities and public institutions of all kinds. That is necessary if we are to preserve our society and maintain and enhance our standards of living, both cultural and material.
It is the Government's duty to see that all our resources are deployed to the best advantage of the nation. If they do not do that, not only the Government but the people who misuse our scientific resources are to be condemned. I welcome the Amendment and I am sure that we all support it, because it calls upon the Government to take a greater lead in the redeployment of our investment resources.

5.54 p.m.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: I cannot accept the picture drawn by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence), who spoke of company directors and industrialists drooling over the tape machine waiting for a one-for-one bonus.

Mr. Bence: I was not talking about the directors.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: If that is the picture of industrialists which the hon. Member draws for his followers in Dunbartonshire, then it is a sad day for Scotland.

Mr. Bence: I never said that. I said that hon. Members opposite who had liquid resources to invest were more interested in investing in shares likely to pay a bonus. I was not suggesting that the directors of industrial plants spent their time doing that. They are running their industries. It was not fair to put that implication on what I said.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: I am delighted to hear that the hon. Member's strictures applied only to entrepreneurs.
I thought the hon. Member was a little unfair to British industry, and especially to the machine tool industry. I hold no brief for the machine tool industry, but going about the world one still sees a number of British machine tools in foreign factories. We must not denigrate British industry, because there are still foreign motor cars using a large proportion of British components.
I am delighted to have the opportunity of saying a few words on this Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn). I knew the hon. Member's father, who was a well-known Sheffield industrialist, very well. He was a respected man in Sheffield, and I am sure that, had he been alive, he would have been proud to hear his son speaking here today. I congratulate the hon. Member on bringing forward this Amendment. The whole world is short of industrial capital. Every industry in this country is short of it, and every company with which I have ever been connected has always been looking for more capital with which to expand its processes.
Even if no expansion is contemplated, more capital is required merely to keep abreast of the times. A good example is that if one has a piece of machinery in one's workshops which cost £20,000 twenty years ago, the cost of replacing it today would be £40,000 to £50,000, although in the meantime it will have grown more complicated and become more sophisticated, so that replacement of the same kind of machinery which one had in 1940 would now cost about £60,000. That is why the need for more capital is ever present in every industrialist's mind.
I always give the simple and homely example of a stair carpet which is bought for £20 and which one hopes will last for ten years. If one were an accountant, one would put a money box at the top of the stairs and ask one's children to put a halfpenny in the box every time they ran up and down the stairs. After about ten years, one would have the £20 to buy a new carpet. However, when one comes to buy a new carpet, it is found that £20 is not enough and that one needs £30. One's wife then decides that she wants something more elaborate and beautiful, so that one finishes by requiring £40 for the carpet.
That brings me to the need for profit in industry, because it is only out of profits that one can provide for future developments. The other day I was looking at the balance sheet and the profit and loss account of I.C.I., which had a turnover last year of about £500 million and made a profit of £80 million. That was reduced by tax to £41 million and

no less than £21 million was retained in the business for future development.
That is an example of private enterprise. On the other side, there is the sad picture of the British Transport Commission, which is about the same size as I.C.I., having a turnover of £500 million.

Mr. Bence: It does not have the same monopoly.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: The Commission lost £80 to £90 million and as a nation we have to finance the Commission's capital expenditure by allocating £80 million a year below the line in the Budget. That is why private industry looks on nationalised industries rather askance and with a jealous eye, for every year some £620 million is provided out of national savings and the Budget for development of the nationalised industries.
That is why the private industrialist has to sell his more popular lines at rather above cost price, because out of that profit he has to provide for future development and future capital. In spite of profits retained in the business, last year I.C.I, spent £27 million from the depreciation reserves, giving some £47 million to be spent on new plant and additions. Of that money, only £4 million came from outside resources, that is to say, LCI. went to the market for only £4 million as opposed to the other £43 million which it financed itself. That is an illustration of the necessity of the self-financing of industry.
I now turn for a moment to the need for research as a prerequisite of effective capital investment in industry. I should like to give an example of effective cooperation between the Government and industry on research and development which has raised the standard of an industry and greatly assisted in improving its products and ability to compete in foreign markets. If I may bore the House, as I had a hand in forming it and raising money for it, I should like to sketch briefly the history of the Motor Industry Research Association.
Before the war, the motor industry had only a small co-operative research organisation. That was the research organisation of the Institution of Automobile Engineers. It received a small grant from the Government and a few thousand


pounds per year were supplied by industry. After the war, it was reformed and greatly expanded and set up in 1946 as a co-operative body with increased support from the Government. I give considerable credit to the Labour Government for the way in which they got this research association going. It was an administrative and not a Parliamentary action, and the Labour Government saw to it that a great deal more money was available to this research organisation.
In the case of the motor industry, the Government said that if the industry could raise £40,000 the Government would give £20,000, and after that they would give £ for £ for any sum over £60,000. The industry managed to raise that through the members of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. In 1955, the target was raised. The industry had to raise £80,000, and the Government gave £30,000, and also £75 against every £100 raised by the industry.
This week, I had an opportunity of looking at the total sums raised in the last ten years. They are formidable. Industry raised nearly £800,000. The Government raised £433,000. In addition, the industry has twice had two special appeals for funds for capital development, and on each occasion it raised about £250,000. A sum of £1¾ million has been spent on co-operative research in the last ten years.
How has that been expended? It has been spent on a number of projects. On a disused airfield near Nuneaton there is a high-speed proving track and the imitation Continental pavé road on which motor vehicles can be tested. It is such a good imitation that once when I was at the Brussels Motor Show going round with the Belgian Minister of Transport he pointed to a picture of a British motor cycle going over a pavé road and said, "Look how terrible our roads are". I pointed out that it was an imitation pavé road that in fact came from the Midlands of England. There is also an African corrugated track, a dust tunnel, a water splash, a cross-country track, a test hill, a wind tunnel, noise rooms and a freezing-up chamber, all of which have greatly assisted in improving the breed of the products.
I remember ten years ago when members of the Society of the Motor Manu-

facturers and Traders and myself first tried to sell motor cars and motor vehicles in America. Although the basic design of the product was accepted as good, the reliability of the small components and parts was not so acceptable, and there was much criticism of them. It is because of the work done on this proving ground that the vehicles have been made more reliable, economically safer and quieter over the years, and the sale of vehicles in the U.S.A. has gone up from 20,000 a year to 250,000 at the present time.
I remember a bus and coach manufacturer telling me that he had obtained a large order from South America for 200 buses but that before completing the order he was going to put one of his buses on the track at Nuneaton to see how it ran. He ran it for a week and found twenty things wrong with it. As a result, he was able to put in further research and development, get the bus right, and give satisfaction to his customer.
That is an example of what can be done by co-operation between the Government and private industry. It is agreeable to note that this co-operative effort, which is typical of many other industries, has been copied in Germany, Italy, France and Japan. As a result of those improvements, the sales of products have gone up and accordingly the productivity of the men in the works has also gone up.
I turn now for a moment to the machine tool industry which has been criticised by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East. We must be fair to that industry. It has to make a great many specialised products. It does not, like the motor industry, make a homogenous product. An industry such as the motor industry requires specialised machine tools. At one time America was foremost in making those machine tools and this country gravitated to buy those tools in America. The machine tool industry has hardly had a chance to develop and specialise to the extent that it should have done to meet modern demands, but there is a way in which it can do so in future.
The machine tool industry has developed its co-operative research through the Production Engineers Research Association, which is a very generalised body dealing with all sorts of trades besides machine tools. I understand that lately


the P.E.R.A. has fallen very largely under the control of the users of the products of machine tools, rather than under the control of the makers of machine tools. That is an error into which it has fallen, but the time has arrived when the machine tool industry must set up its own research organisation, and I hope that we shall hear from the President of the Board of Trade that he is encouraging the Machine Tool Trade Association to do that. I should like each year to see the machine tool industry put aside £50,000 and the Government put aside £30,000 to build up a research organisation specifically to improve British machine tools, rather than leave it as it is now in a generalised research organisation.

Mr. Bence: And for improving new designs.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Yes. We do not want to lag behind. When one has the benefit of research which is done by manufacturers and by research organisations one asks oneself whether it is a help in planning investment. In my opinion it is, because it can answer the question whether one ought to go in for mass production or for specialised production. It can answer the question whether the product is reliable and well designed, and whether it will find a market. It may be that that is more for market research, but it could answer those questions.
It may be that in the years ahead there will be a special place in this country for high-grade products, be they electronic or anything else, but we shall have to ask whether we are leading in these specialised fields or tagging behind. We have heard today that the percentage of our national income devoted to research is less than the percentage devoted by the United States of America and Russia, but vis-à-vis the U.S.A. we have the advantage that while their research organisations belong to individual companies, here we have cooperative research organisations which may take us a step ahead of the United States.
In my opinion, the co-operative research organisations referred to in the Amendment have performed a useful service, and can perform a greater service for us in future. We are dealing

with Supply today, and it is fair to say that the money spent by D.S.I.R. in the last ten to fifteen years has been well spent. The greater encouragement the Government can give to British industry to spend more money in co-operative research the more happily can we look towards the future of British industry and its leadership in world markets.

6.10 p.m.

Mr. James McInnes: I have listened very attentively to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) extolling the virtues of private enterprise—and what a wonderfully efficient and effective institution it appeared to be. Yet, almost in the same breath, he was appealing to the Government to give more money to research to help private enterprise to function as it should. I can tell him that the English are exceedingly lucky in the matter of research. There is only one research organisation in Scotland—the Jute Industries Association. For long we have been hammering at the President of the Board of Trade to direct some of the scientific and research organisations to Scotland, with little or no success.
I intervene for only a few minutes in order to deal with the question of the lack of investment as it affects the frightening problem of the high unemployment rate in Scotland. Scotland is passing through one of the worst periods in its history. Its unemployment rate today is higher than it has been at any time since the war. That is related to the question of investment. It can hardly be asserted that there is a lack of capital in Scotland, but there is evidence of a very serious shortage of investment, both by private enterprise and by the Government.
Last Monday, as the result of a Question in the House, we were told that we were falling behind in the production of coal, gas, electricity and steed. In fact, we were told that Scotland was producing 13 per cent. less steel last year than it was in 1948. In all the industries I have mentioned, we continue to lag behind. I condemn Scottish industrialists for this. Of all the major postwar industrial undertakings which we have been able to attract to Scotland, no less than 66 per cent. came from


England, 23 per cent. from America, 6 per cent. from other European countries, 4 per cent. from Canada, and only 1 per cent. from Scotland. We Scots sometimes say that we ought to sell Scotland abroad, but we cannot sell it to the Scottish industrialists, never mind anyone else.
Furthermore, whether deliberately or otherwise, the Government are not investing in Scotland. Their total investment is concentrated in the South. I had occasion to put a Question to the Minister of Works concerning a number of schemes which had been started between January, 1957, and December, 1959. They were schemes on behalf of research establishments, including Royal Ordnance Factories, the Atomic Energy Authority, the Admiralty, and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. I was informed that 104 schemes had been started in these two years, to the value of £21,284,000. When I sought to elicit what percentage of that had come to Scotland I received the shock of my life. I was told that only three of the 104 schemes had come to Scotland, to the value of £241,000—in other words, 1 per cent.
I support the Amendment, but I must point out that both the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister for Science are conscious that what Scotland requires is scientific and technical industries. That is admitted, but nothing is done by the Government to invest in these industries in Scotland. The result is that we are in the tragic position of having a worse unemployment position now than at any time since the end of the war.
I take this opportunity of appealing to the President of the Board of Trade to give this matter serious consideration. He now has a greater opportunity of being able to influence industry to go to Scotland and to get the Government and private industry to invest in that country and help it to overcome its present tragic unemployment problem.

6.17 p.m.

Mr. Richard Collard: If I do not follow the remarks of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) it is partly because it takes a fairly bold man to speak about Scotland if he does not come from there, and partly because I want to confine my remarks to an industry of which I have

some experience, namely, the aircraft industry. This industry is not inappropriate to be discussed on this Amendment, because not only does it require a great deal of investment but it is one in which the Government are finding themselves obliged to invest.
I must declare an interest in the industry. I would also say that I would prefer the Government to keep out of it. I am at one with the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) in that sentiment. If investment means detailed interference it will eventually be regretted, but there are some respectable examples of heavy investment without detailed interference. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company springs to mind in that connection. Hon. Members on this side of the House have no dogmatic objection to Government investment; what we distrust is detailed Government control. Hon. Members opposite seem to have a dogmatic predilection not only for investment but also for control, Which, by the waste it creates, very soon calls for more investment.

Mr. E. G. Willis: That applies to the hon. Member for Kidderminster, (Mr. Nabarro).

Mr. Collard: The aircraft industry is an extraordinary organisation, containing some extraordinary people. The more picturesque figures—the pioneers—are beginning to disappear, and we shall be the poorer for their going, but the industry retains many of its unique characteristics. Aviation is not so much a profession, hobby or occupation as a disease, and it is of the sufferers from that disease that I wish to speak this evening.
The aircraft industry, I believe, has given good service to this country, but it does not get the benefit from that fact, partly because its public relations are so bad. The reason for that is not far to seek. The industry has consisted of a number of firms all competing for the favours of the same customer, and therefore one can hardly expect it to be a homogeneous organisation which could agree either on public relations or, for that matter, on the general policy of the industry as a whole. Nevertheless, I believe that it has given great service to the community.
What is most odd about the aircraft industry is its growth, which has been


quite abnormal. The industry has grown up in two wars. The whole of aviation, not just the military side but also civil aviation, so far as the manufacture of aircraft is concerned, has grown up and has been expanded as a result of two wars. The civil aircraft business has been carried on the back of the miltary aircraft business, and the vast expansion in the industry has not been justified by its commercial possibilities. It has been justified because the country on two particular occasions has required this enormous expansion which the industry has attained. Not that this military development was wasted, although many of the productions of the industry literally went up in smoke. There was the work accruing to many thousands of people employed in the industry. There were the profits accruing to the shareholders who invested in it.
In particular, the sophisticated techniques of aircraft construction were responsible for an enormous technological advance over the whole scope of engineering. Last, but not least—and most important of all—it has contributed enormously to the defence of the country, and its exports have been by no means negligible. They are the type of exports which are particularly suited to our national genius, in that they contain a very high proportion of skill in their value and only a very small proportion of hardware.
The business of making commercial civil aircraft has never stood on its own feet. After each war, civil air transport consisted of converted military types. Some civil types, both here and in America, have grown out of the resources originally established for military production; other civil types grew and were developed from military transport. In particular, engines which have been used for civil aircraft were originally put in hand and developed for military purposes. Electrical systems and hydraulic systems which have been used in civil aircraft were originally developed and used at Government expense for military aircraft.
Above all, civil aircraft construction has benefited from the basic research which has been put in hand in connection with the Government's requirements for military aircraft. This is not only

true of this country, but is equally true of the great aircraft manufacturing companies of America. The Douglas Company, the Lockheed Company, and the Boeing Company would not now be the power which they are in the civil aircraft market had it not been for the fact that, in two wars and for the first part of this century, they have been the recipients of Government support in respect of large military orders.
I think it is probably true to say that only one civil aircraft has, in fact, shown a profit, and that is the Viscount. Admittedly, it had some Government support at the beginning, but it has now paid it all back and more. There has probably been no other civil aircraft in the whole history of the industry which has actually shown a profit as a project on its own, other than the Viscount. I mention this to illustrate the point which I hope to make. Now that the requirements of military aircraft are much less in quantity and in variety of types, the volume of aeronautical research must be expected to decrease, and the necessity for making money out of the commercial market, as opposed to the military market, must arise. In this country, we are faced with the fact that we have no great home market. Once a large proportion of the requirements of military aircraft is taken away, we are left in the position that we do not get the cushioning which we had so long as military aircraft were in demand.
The difficulties of conducting a civil aircraft manufacturing business are considerable, but I will mention only one or two. Among the big difficulties we might list the fact that there is no specific requirement. When one is making military aircraft according to Government requirements it is quite clear that the requirement is there, but in civil aircraft one has to assess the requirement, to find it out, and hope that it will not have disappeared before the aircraft is developed. The financial difficulty is that, having allocated the original sum for the design of the aircraft and construction of the prototypes, one then has to make an agonising appraisal as to whether to lay down a production line and at what time to do so. If one lays down the production line too late one will not be able to offer decent delivery dates, but if one lays it down too


early one may find oneself with unsold completed aircraft on one's hands, and that is the quick way to bankruptcy in this business.
As to the commercial difficulties, we are serving a market in which the customers have profits which are either nonexistent or marginal. For that reason, they will invariably require very long credit. We are also serving customers who will demand an expensive and elaborate after-sales service which will involve, among other things, laying out a great deal of capital in vast stocks of spares which may remain unsold; in fact, the more efficient the aircraft, the longer will they remain unsold. We may also possibly be liable for heavy damages, which we cannot avoid by any form of contract, if we should be so unfortunate as to have an aircraft involved in a disaster.
One engages in lengthy and protracted negotiations in every corner of the globe. One receives a quite useless document from customers, called a letter of intent, on the strength of which one has to decide whether to start to construct an aircraft which one hopes, eventually, to sell. The negotiations for sale may continue for many years. Expenses on any project over that time will mount continually. There will be no return on them until orders have been obtained and the aircraft built and sold and until the credit has expired and the whole of the money is received.
I speak of these matters from personal experience. I make the point in order to suggest to the House some of the facts of life regarding this industry. It is not much good blinking them. By itself, the making of civil aircraft is not commercially attractive and by purely commercial criteria one would stop doing it. But on 15th February of this year my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation said that the Government regarded it as essential that the United Kingdom should maintain a strong and efficient aircraft industry. My right hon. Friend straight away and boldly accepted the implications of that policy. I doubt whether many hon. Members would disagree that we ought to have a strong and efficient aircraft industry despite all the commercial difficulties which I have mentioned and not tried to gloss over.
In accepting the implications of this policy, my right hon. Friend said that

he would do four things. He would continue aeronautical research on a large scale, even though it was not directly related to military projects. He said the Government would be prepared to contribute to the initial cost of certain projects for airframes and engines. He said that the Government would be prepared to share the risks of laying down a production line; in other words, to come in on that risk which I mentioned earlier when a decision has to be made whether to put in more money, having already invested money in the design and prototype. Fourthly, my right hon. Friend said that under certain conditions and in certain cases the Government would contribute towards the cost of proving civil aircraft in service. Financially, the Government will receive back royalties in cases where they give assistance in one or more of these ways. I hope that the Government will not confine their requirement for royalties merely to the recovery of the money which they invest. In the case of successes, I hope that the royalties will continue for all time so that the Government may share in the success, because without doubt there will also be failures.
My right hon. Friend has encouraged the industry to form itself into groups likely to be capable of benefiting from this new Government policy. He has been singularly successful in achieving this and it may be said that the industry has been singularly co-operative in acceding to his wishes. I have no wish to make any special plea for the aircraft industry. I desire only to draw the attention of the House, in all humility, to certain facts of life which affect this great industry.
Few would dissent from the view that we should be in the forefront of aeronautical development. Few would dissent from the view that we ought to build a supersonic airliner, but very few would claim that to carry out such a project is within the power of any private organisation. The fact is that the construction of commercial aircraft is not sufficiently attractive from a commercial point of view to attract enough private capital. So, boldly and rightly, the Government have decided to contribute not only towards the basic research for this industry but also to the capital, under one of the heads I mentioned, to enable the result


of research to be developed and finally to be put on the markets of the world.
I believe that the decision by the Government is in line with the Amendment so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn). I applaud it with the qualification that I regret its necessity. I hope that in this industry, as in others, it will be possible to make the capital investment and still avoid the detailed Governmental day-to-day control which I believe would defeat its own object.

6.36 p.m.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: The hon. Member for Norfolk, Central (Mr. Collard) gave an informed and interesting if somewhat lugubrious account of the position of the aircraft industry today. If this was the sort of speech he intended to make, I cannot understand why the hon. Gentleman began by making the dogmatic statements he did about the extreme undesirability of Government interference in industry of any sort. It is only because gentlemen in Whitehall think that in some cases they know best that there is any aircraft industry at all today, and I think that the hon. Gentleman appreciated the advantage of that. Why, then, did he think it convincing to combine that belief with the dogmatic statements which he made regarding Government assistance to industry? I find that difficult to understand.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) moved his Amendment with an agreeable speech. Having introduced the subject three hours ago, it is unfortunate that the hon. Member has hardly been in the Chamber since. I am reminded of an occasion when the late Mr. Balfour, towards the end of his life, was presiding over a rather less than riveting lecture given by a member of the Royal Society. After dozing through some parts of it, Mr. Balfour apologised to the lecturer for having missed substantial parts of the lecture owing to increasing age and deafness and said he would judge that clearly he had missed the more significant parts. It is clear that the hon. Member for Hallam has missed substantial parts of the debate, and I am not sure that they have not been the more significant parts.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: I wish to apologise to the House. When I last spoke I had some difficulty in dealing with the HANSARD report and I wished to make certain of its accuracy this time. I regret not being in the Chamber.

Mr. Jenkins: We shall look forward to a remarkable degree of accuracy in the hon. Gentleman's speech after his absence of two hours or more on this occasion.
The hon. Gentleman dealt with his subject in relatively non-controversial terms. In a sense, because of that, he did not press issues which he might have done. Capital investment, after all, is in some ways the reverse of sin. Put in sufficiently general terms, very few people are likely to be against it. To some extent the hon. Gentleman started off in fairly general terms, but I think we must come more to grips with the subject, and I hope that will be done by the President of the Board of Trade.
The hon. Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet), who also is not present in the Chamber at this moment, made an interesting speech, but for the number of occasions on which he had subsequently to rise to explain that what he said was not what subsequently he was credited with saying. Again, the hon. Gentleman did not deal with the issue in more than a general sense.
The hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst), another and more surprising absentee from the Chamber—I am sorry that the Government benches are so denuded at the end of this debate—was in kinder mood towards the Government than sometimes he is. He said that the Government had gone continuously in the right direction for the past nine years, though with occasional diversions, as I understood his point to be. His main contribution to the debate was the manner in which he put to the House, more forcefully than any other hon. Member, the hard figures about the relatively poor performance of our investment in this country at the present time.
I think the analysis which the hon. Member made was good, but I was less impressed by the remedy which he advocated—simply to offer industry a package deal in which investment allowances, and, I think, the initial allowances, too, were to be abolished and industry was to have the Profits Tax abolished at the


same time. The hon. Gentleman thought that would solve all the problems. Investment and private industry would be left to itself to do a great deal of highly satisfactory investment in the right places and in the right industries at the right time—just as the hon. Member has himself arrived back in the Chamber not quite at the right time but almost at the right time, if I may say so.
Before he came into the Chamber, I was congratulating the hon. Member for Shipley on his diagnosis of the problem, but I was being a little more critical about some of the remedies he suggested for dealing with it. In particular, I expressed scepticism about the abolition of investment allowances and initial allowances, on the one hand, and Profits Tax, on the other, as a solution for the problem of both the volume and direction of our investment, and about the argument that if the Government left things alone everything would work out satisfactorily.

Mr. Hirst: The basic problem I was trying to tackle was that of giving an assurance to industry that there would not be changes every minute, first in one way and then the other, which is damaging to capital investment. It was in that context that I made my remarks.

Mr. Jenkins: Yes, but the hon. Member would not deny the propositions which he put forward and which I mentioned earlier. Indeed, continuity is something which, like capital investment, if put in sufficiently general terms, is likely to find favour, though the Government do not always practise it as completely as we or the hon. Member might sometimes wish.
It is difficult on the face of it to see how the abolition of Profits Tax with the abolition of investment allowances—which would benefit the firms with a low rate of investment and be a disadvantage to firms with a high rate of investment—would prove an advantage. It is difficult to see how this would affect the problem of what sort of investment we want and in what places.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) dealt with this matter extremely well. I am not sure that the President of the Board of Trade would agree that the motor industry would have chosen the exact sites where development is to take place in

the future without—how shall be put it? —a little gentle persuasion from himself. As I understand the hon. Member for Shipley, he thinks that had the Profits Tax been removed the motoring industry would have gone exactly where the Government think it should go in order to develop, or alternatively, it would not have gone there, but that would not have mattered because the employment policy is nonsense anyway.

Mr. Hirst: Government planning?

Mr. Jenkins: Does the hon. Member want the degree of Government planning in which the President of the Board of Trade has been indulging?

Mr. Hirst: That may be slightly doubtful. What is far more certain is that I do not want the degree of planning which the hon. Member advocates.

Mr. Jenkins: I thought the hon. Member's kindness towards the Government was likely to be fairly shortlived, and I see that this has indeed proved to be the case.
I think that there has been a temptation, from which some hon. Members opposite suffered and which they did not entirely resist, to make speeches perhaps more appropriate to gatherings of chambers of commerce, at which they were giving puffs to particular industries or even particular firms, rather than to debate the general problems of capital investment. I certainly suffer from the temptation, as conceivably does the President of the Board of Trade, to make my Budget speech all over again. I will, however, endeavour to avoid doing that and confine myself rather more closely to the problems of capital investment, but, openly, definitely and without apology, deal with it in a general sense and not look just at the problems of particular industries in the detailed way in which some hon. Members have done.
Are we satisfied with the level of capital investment in this country and with the prospects for a change in that level? If not, what do we, and what do the Government—for the Government have the power—propose to do about it? The starting point, on which we ought not to be in much dispute, is that our performance in 1959 in this respect was relatively bad. In the fourth


quarter of the year in manufacturing industry—and I am primarily concerned, as is the whole nation, with manufacturing industry, and the Amendment is about private industry—investment was the same as in the first quarter of 1959, which means that it was lower than in any quarter since the beginning of 1955. That is a bad record for the last quarter of 1959, this great boom quarter.
The performance is given some sort of respectability only by the promised spurt in private investment of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a great deal in his Budget speech and which, if it takes place, would certainly much improve the level of investment in private industry but—let us be clear about this—only to the extent of bringing it back to approximately the 1957 position and to the extent of narrowing the gap between our rate of investment and that of our main trade rivals. It would certainly go nowhere near to closing that gap.
To what extent does this matter? We do not want to make a shibboleth of the level of capital investment, as if it were something about which we all talk and to which we bend our knees as though it were a great thing which nobody should criticise. But if it matters, why does it matter? In a long-term sense, obviously the rate of capital investment governs the country's economic power, our standard of living and our position as a nation in the world. That is in the long-term setting.
Clearly, all the indications of the present trend, projected forward, are that, relatively, we are slipping pretty badly in this country, but in a way the level of capital investment matters for a more immediate and more short-term reason. There is mounting evidence that it is not just a question whether the rate of growth of which our industry would be capable at recent levels of investment—if it could go ahead continuously—would be enough to keep us more or less abreast of our rivals; it is a question that, as British industry is organised at present, the tendency, as soon as we make any sort of spurt, to run into balance of payments difficulties is so strong that there is no possibility, as far as we can see, of our being able to go ahead steadily even at the rates made possible by the present level of investment.
In other words, we are always in the position that we do not go ahead with a big spurt as fast as that of the Soviet Union, Japan, Western Germany or, conceivably, even France, and, moreover, that we cannot do so because as soon as any spurt takes place it immediately has a significant effect upon the balance of payments position and the brakes have to be put on much more quickly in this country than in almost any other country.

Mr. William Shepherd: The hon. Member has said that we are slipping behind very badly. Would he like to tell the House which industries, with the exception, say, of the cotton textile industry, he considers would justify an immediate and substantial increase in capital investment above the level which is now taking place?

Mr. Jenkins: This is an extraordinarily pessimistic view.

Mr. Shepherd: Answer.

Mr. Jenkins: I will certainly answer it in a moment. In fact, if the hon. Member insists, I will answer it now and then deal with the implications. I would justify a great increase in investment in the machine tool industry and in the steel industry, apart from sheet steel—because a great deal of the investment in steel is geared to the motor industry and is concentrated on sheet steel. Those are two industries to begin with, and it would not be difficult to add to the list.
The hon. Member makes pertinent interventions: he made one in my Budget speech; I spent about two weeks thinking about it and I propose to reply to it later this evening. But he seems to be acting upon an assumption which is so despairing of the state of the country as to be hardly possible to countenance. He does not challenge the fact that our rate of investment is lower than that of our rivals, but he says to me, "Look at British industry. Where is there a place in which it is worth putting in more investment?"

Mr. Shepherd: The hon. Member tries to do an injustice in his remarks. I do-not think that the figures normally quoted reflect the true position. I think they are misleading. Had I not been in my constituency, I should have liked to speak about this in the debate. In my opinion, the steel industry does not


at the moment justify more capital investment than is envisaged and is being carried out, and the machine tool industry needs drive and imagination rather than capital investment.

Mr. Jenkins: It is conceivable that it needs all three. I dare say the hon. Member is well informed on these subjects and knows perfectly well that we cannot argue them in great detail across the Floor at this stage of the debate. I certainly have no desire to do him an injustice; quite the contrary.
He says that the figures showing our investment performance by comparison with that of our main trade rivals are picked out relatively unfairly and that our investment performance is in fact better than the figures indicate. Nobody will deny that the comparative use of international statistics is an extremely tricky art, with a great margin for error. But if what he is saying were true, and if these investment comparisons gave a false picture, one would expect this to be corrected by the picture of the results. Suppose it were the case that the figures showed our investment performance to be below that of Germany, France or the Soviet Union, but that our productivity figures showed that we were doing substantially better than would be expected from those investment figures; or suppose that the relative export performances showed that we were doing better than would be expected from the investment figures, conceivably there would be a temptation to agree with him and to say that there was something wrong with the investment figures. But when we are in the position in which we have the figures, in which it is difficult to challenge them in detail, and in which the results are exactly what we should expect if the figures gave a true and not a false comparison, then it seems to me that the balance of probability is heavily on the side of the figures and not on the side of the hon. Member.

Mr. Shepherd: Would the hon. Member like to tell the House in which industries, except the textile industry, our prices are not competitive with those of Continental countries? It is the end cost of the product which is important.

Mr. Jenkins: I am certainly willing to give the hon. Member some information. Quite unashamedly, I am anxious to keep this matter in terms relating to British industry as a whole and not to deal with particular industries and even with particular firms, as some hon. Members have done, because otherwise it is possible to become completely lost and to be unable to see the wood for the trees. But I am quite willing to argue in detail. Before the hon. Member started this series of interruptions. I was about to call attention to a leading article in yesterday's Financial Times dealing with the general export position.
It read:
In 1959, to take but the latest example, U.K. exports rose by just over half the world average and showed a much lower rate of expansion than those of either Japan or any of the principal European countries.

Mr. Shepherd: Mr. Shepherd rose—

Mr. Jenkins: I like the hon. Member to make interventions, but I prefer him to ration them reasonably and not to have too many.
The Financial Times went on to deal with why it thought this was so and made a number of points which I should have made if the hon. Member had not deflected me. I wanted to deal with the structural imbalance which there seems to me to be in the British economy at present. It then dealt precisely with the price picture, and said:
A glance at export prices suggests a large part of the answer. Compared with 1953 British prices have risen by 9 per cent., American by 7 per cent., while German prices have remained stable and Japanese have actually fallen.
That seems a complete answer to the hon. Member. I hope that hon. Members opposite are not reacting with one of their favourite reactions and assuming that this is just a question of wages, because since 1953 German wages have risen quite as fast as those in the United Kingdom. German productivity has risen much higher, however, and the reason is that German investment has been consistently higher.
The point with which I was dealing is that not merely are we faced with an inadequate rate of long-term growth because of a low level of investment but we are unable to make full use of the growth which would be possible for us,


given our present industrial horsepower, because the balance of our industry is such that we have a far greater liability to run into a balance of payments crisis as soon as we move into an expansionary phase than have most of our trade rivals.
The next point I want to make is that, as I said earlier, the 1959 position was thoroughly bad and the present position is given respectability only by what I called the Chancellor's spurt, the additional 10 per cent. investment which was predicted earlier in the New Year. But, of course, that is something in the future and is not something firm; it is something which we hope will happen. Will it take place? After all, these were pre-Budget predictions, and they were probably pre-Bank Rate increase predictions. At any rate, since they were made we have had an increase in the Bank Rate and we have had the Budget and, perhaps more important than either of the other two, we have had the Chancellor's vague credit threats hanging over the economy.
One of the major troubles of the Budget was that it had a deflationary analysis followed by practically no deflationary action of any sort. It was a deflationary analysis with very little action but with general threats that something was about to be done in the use of the monetary weapon. This may well have been desirable at the time, but I am bound to say that nearly every hon. Member, and I think most informed and interested opinion outside the House, thought that when the Chancellor used that threat in his Budget speech he intended within a matter of days in all probability, and certainly within a matter of a fortnight, to make it absolutely clear what he had in mind. Yet we have gone on for two and nearly three weeks with this threat still hanging above the economy.
There is no doubt that if the Chancellor wanted to create uncertainty in the business world and a climate in which people might revise their investment projects downwards, he could not have done this more successfully. What is the position? Can the President of the Board of Trade tell us? The position is causing great concern at present.
I quoted yesterday's Financial Times leader in reply to the hon. Member for

Cheadle. The leader in today's Financial Times deals specifically with this point, and deals with it in extremely strong terms. It says:
It is difficult to believe that the resulting confusion"—
that is, from the Chancellor's policy of nods and winks, as they have been described—
has in some mysterious way been beneficial to the economy. The object of the Government's policy is to bring about a slowing down, although not a halt, in the growth of demand, with the emphasis on consumption and property investment. The deliberate creation of uncertainty is a dangerous procedure for achieving this objective, as no one can predict in what direction it may lead. It could lead to too much or too little slowing down of economic activity, and the slowing down could be in productive investment, which the Government wants to encourage.
We are entitled to hear something from the President of the Board of Trade this evening. It would have been useful if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had chosen to intervene in the debate in view of the amount of speculation there has been on the subject. I know that the President of the Board of Trade cannot make the Chancellor's statement for him, but I hope that he will tell us whether we can expect from the Chancellor in the very near future a definite statement clearing up the position. Unless that is done, there is grave danger that uncertainty will persist and that the very assumption of increased investment, which was one of the most cheerful factors the Chancellor had behind him in making his Budget speech, will be destroyed by the way in which he has set about carrying out this policy.
The Chancellor is wrong not merely to postpone making his policy clear but also, whether he made it clear earlier or whether he will make it clear soon, in allowing it to depend too much at present on the monetary weapon. The monetary weapon may or may not be effective. One thing which is certain is that, to the extent that it is effective, it is extremely indiscriminate. Looking back over the history of the past few years, it is clear that what we want is not perhaps detailed controls, but a little more discrimination in a broad sense between what activity we encourage and what activity we discourage. We want a little discrimination in general in favour of investment, as opposed to consumption. Within the


investment field we want discrimination in favour of investment which will be desirable from the point of view of overcoming the lack of balance in the economy which makes us so peculiarly susceptible to balance of payments difficulties.
Let me give the President of the Board of Trade a few examples on this. We do not want to cut down investment in general. There may be certain forms of investment in which some restriction would be proper at present. What about hire-purchase finance? How does the President of the Board of Trade feel about this at present? My information is that the obtaining of deposits from the public, the general system of hire-purchase finance at the margin, may well be growing into a major public scandal. It is certainly an undesirable use of resources to quite a considerable extent. Is the President of the Board of Trade looking into that at present?
It is generally true that the amount of what one might call property investment in this country is probably greater than we desire from the point of view of balance—even in this country. But to go in for large-scale property investment in New York, on which British capital is now being used on quite a large scale, seams to me to be going a little too far.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: A jolly good thing.

Mr. Jenkins: The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) himself said—it was the only point in his speech I can remember—that the whole world was short of capital, particularly this country. When there is a great shortage of capital for domestic productive investment in this country and when there is a greater shortage of capital for helping under-developed areas, is it the best use of British capital to finance the building of a very large skyscraper on top of Grand Central Station?

Mr. Gresham Cooke: We must have a little exchange. In view of all the American capital invested in this country, are we not allowed to invest a little in America?

Mr. Jenkins: Unless Manhattan is regarded as an under-developed area, which it would be difficult to argue convincingly, this is an example of British

capital certainly not being used in the best way.
In so far as there is a development in investment in private manufacturing industry at present, there is no doubt that to an overwhelming extent that is accounted for by the steel and motor industries, and by the chemical industry to a lesser extent. The steel and motor industries are well ahead of the field. Those parts of the steel industry which are most geared to the motor industry are expanding most rapidly within the steel industry.
I am not against having a prosperous, buoyant motor industry in this country. How could I be, sitting for a Birmingham seat? We certainly want some expansion, but I am not sure that we want quite the degree of concentration of our very limited investment resources in this industry which we have at present.
This is a problem, not only of the total volume of investment, though that is still grossly inadequate, but also of using our limited investment resources in the best way. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not persist in the view which he has often put to the House, I think only for public consumption, that in these matters, unless he himself is doing it behind the scenes, any degree of Government interference cannot be other than a disaster. Do not let us have a complacent picture from the right hon. Gentleman this evening. I hope that he will face these problems and give us, not a debating answer, not an answer which might please one or two of his hon. Friends—there are not enough of them here this evening to be worth pleasing—but am answer which will face the world problems before the House and the country in this issue.

7.7 p.m.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Reginald Maudling): In contributing to the debate I may not be able entirely to resist the temptation to make something of a debating answer, and I hope that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), will forgive me if I do.
The Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) deals not only with capital investment but, more particularly, with scientific and technological research and development, though in the course of


the debate rather more has been said about investment than about science and technology. I agree entirely with what my hon. Friend said in emphasising the crucial importance of science and technology for this country in the 1960s. After all, apart from a certain amount of coal, china clay and iron ore, the only resources we have in this country are our brains. It is by the mobilisation and development of our brainpower alone that we shall survive in the world of the 1960s. There can be no doubt about the importance of scientific and technological development or of the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend.
My hon. Friend referred in the course of his speech to many points. He stressed the importance of research and development and of the D.S.I.R., which I think the whole House would agree does extremely important work, both in what it does itself and in the assistance it gives to industry.
I was particularly interested in what my hon. Friend said about the importance of assessing research and development projects from the market point of view. We must realise always that there is a great difference between Government financed research and development, where the Government are the sole customers; and research and development of a civil kind where there is a wide range of customers. Therefore, the ultimate control over the direction and balance of research and development must lie very much with the people who know what the market wants.
I am rather surprised, in a way, that nothing was said today about market research, because in some ways market research, the study of the customer's requirements, not only in this country but overseas, is just as important in the long run to our economy as the study of the technical possibilities of meeting those requirements.
I should like to call to the attention of the House, as has often been done in the past, the very great effort which the Board of Trade Export Services Branch puts into studying the requirements of markets throughout the world. Although those services are already very much used by businessmen, the more they are known and used the better for our export trade generally.
The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) made, as he always does, a very interesting speech. I will not enter into the possible political background to his speech, as other hon. Members have done. He mentioned the interesting point, often made, that the "consumer goods boom", as it is called, preceded the expansion in investment. It is perfectly true that the re-expansion in the economy in 1958 moved back through the consumer industries to the lighter engineering industries, and only later to the heavy industries—parts of which are, perhaps, still underloaded.
That, I think, is perhaps inevitable in any free economy because, however much we talk of the stimulation of investment—investment allowances and so on—people will not lay out money in new investment without seeing a market for their goods, and I must confess that my experience over the last few years has borne in on me very much that the key to expansion of investment must be the foresight of a steady expansion of consumption. But that is one of the great problems that we shall have to continue to face—

Mr. Douglas Jay: Then the right hon. Gentleman will agree that it follows from that that it was the Government's policy of cutting down generally on spending power in 1951–59 that was the cause of a fall in investment in the last few years.

Mr. Maudling: I must say it seems a little strange for the right hon. Gentleman to talk of the Government cutting down spending power in a period when consumption was in fact increasing. But we will come to that a little later.
The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne mentioned cotton and shipping. Dealing, first, wtih cotton, I would ask him to wait a little longer to see the results of the reorganisation scheme. My impression certainly is that the scheme is working out extremely well. It has been very well administered by the Cotton Board, and although there are temporary difficulties of supply and so on—we must expect that sort of thing—I am sure that, in the long run, we shall see that the scheme has been of great benefit to Lancashire and. indeed, to the country as a whole—

Mr. Rhodes: I did not say that it was not. I was pointing out that the Government were offering 25 per cent. on new equipment, and I was merely saying that the Government should be aware of how the money was to be spent, and what they were really equipping for.

Mr. Maudling: I am sorry—I thought that the hon. Gentleman was criticising the scheme. If he was approving it, I withdraw and will say no more about it. I would only say let us wait a little longer to see how the results work out in the long term. The present signs are encouraging.
On shipping, I rather think that the hon. Gentleman was confusing the problem of flags of convenience and the problem of flag discrimination. For many years, the flag-of-convenience ship operating pretty well on a tax-free basis was a very great danger to our industry, but since the introduction of the very substantial investment allowance for shipping—the special premiums for shipping—there is not very much in the tax position when we compare the flag-of-convenience owner with the large owner, at any rate in this country, with a substantial replacement programme.
The danger now is far more that arising from flag discrimination. Obviously, I cannot enter into that question at any length now, but both we and the Norwegians—and the other maritime nations of Europe—feel very strongly the pressure of flag discrimination on our normal maritime trade.
I sympathise very much with what the hon. Gentleman said about the apparent remoteness of much scientific research from actual industrial needs, although as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) said it is very often difficult, with these scientific characters, to predict what the practical results of their work will be in the long run; and it is sometimes difficult at the time to see how valuable those results will be. I agree with the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne that an increase of productivity should be a prime objective of research and development as applied to industry.
My hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet) referred to the importance of investment in the oil refining industry, and in petrochemicals,

which has been a very dramatic development indeed, and I was glad to hear what he said in support of the joint approach to development. The joint co-operative approach to research and development in industry has clearly been of great value in recent years.
The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) was a little more controversial—although, perhaps, that was my fault for interrupting him on a controversial basis. In answer to a question which I think he asked, I believe that we could certainly do with a higher level of investment in the United Kingdom, although I think the reasons for the hold-back in investment in the manufacturing industries have been not entirely unconnected with the political scene.
If one looks at the forecast of investment made by many big firms in private industry, one sees the extraordinary change in the predictions before and after the General Election. The change was very great. The figures were probably exaggerated; they were too low before the election and too high afterwards, but it is a substantial point that a shift resulted from the change, or lack of change, in the political climate.
The hon. Member for Gloucester, like one or two other Members, referred to the desirability of a 100 per cent. write off of capital investment; the complete freedom of the business man to write off what and when he likes. That subject is perhaps more appropriate to the debates that will take place in the next few weeks, but when this question has been studied in the past it has appeared that the actual swing that might be involved in the revenue in a given year would be very substantial indeed.
I would say to the hon. Gentleman that, from the revenue point of view, he would find that the difficulties of giving complete discretion to the industrialist to write off as and when he pleased are very formidable and must not be underrated, although from the point of view of the businessman it might be a considerable advantage.
Where I do not go with the hon. Member for Gloucester is in his idea that one could accelerate or decelerate investment on detailed instructions after close consultation between a large number of firms and the Board of Trade. I do not think that that would work in practice.


We get a great deal of information from these big firms about their investment plans, and in operating the I.D.C. system we learn a great deal more, but the idea of getting a complete picture is impracticable. Even if one could get a complete picture, and one that could be relied on for a long time ahead, the idea of going to firm A and saying "You must expand," while saying to firm B, "You must not expand," does not, I think, agree with a free economy such as we have in this country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) also referred to depreciation allowances, and said that there were too many changes in the initial and investment allowances. I know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is very well aware of the difficulties that arise, but I am afraid that we must face the fact that the economic climate changes very rapidly for reasons that are not within this country's control.
If we are trying to run the economy on a very narrow margin indeed—say, between 98·5 per cent. and 99·5 per cent. effort—we are bound to have to make fairly frequent adjustments in one direction or another. While I appreciate that this is very often inconvenient to businessmen in their future planning, it is very difficult to see, at any rate with the economic techniques and knowledge at present available, how it can be avoided.
My hon. Friend made the point, as one would expect him to do, that Government expenditure is a very strong competitor with both private and public investment. I certainly accept that, but, of course, the main competitor is public consumption, and the question of competition between consumption and investment for the available national resources must raise very delicate problems, particularly in the course of Budget debates.
My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) referred to the co-operation of Government and industry in research, and particularly to the Motor Industry Research Association. I was glad that he did so, because I feel that in its activities the D.S.I.R. does many valuable things and, I think, does

nothing more valuable than in helping to promote in industries co-operative research that would not otherwise have taken place. My hon. Friend's example of the motor industry is a particularly valuable one.
My hon. Friend also referred to the question of machine tools, about which the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) spoke at considerable length. I am afraid that I missed the hon. Gentleman's speech, but, as he is not here, he is missing mine, so that is fair shares. As the House will be aware, a great deal of study of the problems of the machine tool industry is at present going on by co-operation between the Government and the industry.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) rose in his place looking, I thought, a little ominous, and, as I rather expected, said that there was not enough research in Scotland. It is a familiar argument, but one into which it is difficult for me to enter today. I thought that he was a little lugubrious, if I may say so, when he spoke of unemployment in Scotland now being higher than at any time since the war. I thought that there had been a little improvement recently, although I certainly agree that there is a very long way to go. I was interested in what he said about Scottish investment in Scotland. I share his disappointment that, of all the investment there has been in recent years, such a small percentage comes from Scottish sources. I hope that the future may restore that balance.
My hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, Central (Mr. Collard) made a most interesting speech about the great commercial difficulties facing the aircraft industry, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation will study that with close attention.
I come now to the hon. Member for Stechford who, as usual, made a most lively speech. He was talking very largely about the level of investment—

Mr. Roy Jenkins: It is in the Amendment.

Mr. Maudling: The Amendment is partly about investment, but also largely about science and technology, to which the hon. Gentleman did not refer.
I agree with one of my hon. Friends who said that some of these figures of


international comparisons arc rather unreliable, although we have to use them as they are the best that are available. The fact remains that the total level of fixed investment in this country has risen very considerably at constant prices over several years, and has risen continuously.
One interesting thing that has just been pointed out to me is that the proportion of the gross domestic product devoted to fixed investment other than housing increased more in this country between 1954 and 1958 than it did in the O.E.E.C. countries as a group. As the growth in the proportion devoted to machinery and equipment increased, so the position over those years has been relatively improved—

Mr. Jay: I do not want to question all the right hon. Gentleman's figures, but if he takes the increase in gross capital formation here since 1953 and compares it with other European countries he will find that in O.E.E.C. it is 31 per cent., in Germany 70 per cent.; in Italy 48 per cent., and, in France, also 48 per cent. That is surely not very encouraging.

Mr. Maudling: I was dealing with fixed capital investment other than housing, which is important. The proportion of the gross national product devoted to investment today is increasing. I agree that the proportion here is not as high as it is in a number of European countries, but it is at about the same level as in the United States, and, so far as I can see, the proportion devoted to research and development is also about the same here as it is in the United States.
In making these comparisons it is not unimportant to have regard to the United States economy which is, after all, a very big and rapidly expanding one. With a gross national product of over 500 billion it has been expanding very rapidly—

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Surely the President of the Board of Trade does not suggest that giving the gross national product shows that an economy is expanding. Would he like to give figures for American expansion for the last five years? Over which countries' economies has that of the United States expanded faster in the last five years?

Mr. Maudling: I could not say, but the American gross national product has reached the very high level of over 500 billion which, from that country's point of view, seems very satisfactory.
The other point made by the hon. Gentleman, and one that is extremely important, is our tendency to run into balance of payments difficulties if we expand too fast which, he said, happens more quickly here than in other countries. He may be right there, although I do not accept the reasons he gave for it. Frankly, I was rather mystified by his reference to the balance of industry being such that we run into difficulties more quickly than do other countries.
I believe that the reason is probably that our reserves in relation to our liabilities are infinitely smaller than those of other countries. The reserves backing sterling are much less than those backing the deutschmark and not much bigger than those backing the lira, yet, with sterling backing over 40 per cent. of world trade, the responsibility is very great. Inevitably with the ratio between our reserve situation and our international commitments we are liable to run more quickly into difficulties than are other countries—

Mr. Roy Jenkins: That would probably explain why we got into difficulties such as those we experienced in 1957—that was largely a reserves crisis. It does not appear, however, that what the right hon. Gentleman says would explain why our short spurt last year should have landed us in this balance of payments situation, which has nothing to do with reserves or with the strain on sterling, with the prospect this year of a still worse balance of payments position than last year, although, assuming that stronger rate of growth as compared with last year, the balance of payments position is still extremely strong.

Mr. Maudling: The sort of thing that I had in mind was this: when we get a re-expansion of industry we get a substantial restocking. One of the problems of the balance of payments is the high level of imports arising from restocking. If we have adequate reserves we can carry this, but if our reserves are inadequate we may rapidly be brought into very serious difficulties.
The trouble is that we must limit the total call on our resources to what they can produce. Last year we saw an expansion of over 10 or 11 per cent. in total industrial production, but that was because we were bringing into use a great many resources which were previously idle. I do not think one can expect another expansion on the same scale this year. Of course, there is room for the very vigorous and healthy expansion which is taking place. The purpose of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget—I cannot repeat my own Budget speech or that of the hon. Member—was to ensure that expansion, although continuing strongly, should not outrun the resources available.
Of course, in deciding what can be done we have to bear in mind that there is direct competition between consumption and investment. I thought that the hon. Member for Stechford rather avoided that question, because if he wants to see more of our resources going into investment it must mean fewer of our resources going into consumption. I have not noticed from the party opposite many proposals in recent months or years designed to reduce consumption. On the whole, their proposals tend to work in the other direction.
The hon. Member touched on the age-old story of controls. As usual, he did not say what controls he meant. He wanted to restrict consumption, but he did not say how it should be restricted. What sort of controls restrict consumption? So far as I know, there is only one form of control that restricts consumption. The hon. Gentleman talked about discriminating in favour of desirable investment. But how are any Government to say to a commercial firm what is a desirable investment and what is an undesirable investment? To a business, what is desirable is the investment which will produce something which people are going to buy. Unless capital investment is adjusted to the pattern of future demand, one is wasting one's resources.

Mr. Diamond: What was the Capital Issues Committee doing over all those years except deciding that very thing?

Mr. Maudling: That is precisely why we abolished the Capital Issues Committee. One might as well ask why we

do not continue with rationing. If we have a food shortage we have have a system of rationing. But I would not have thought that capital was short in the way in which it was at the time when the Capital Issues Committee was operating. I do not see how the party opposite can controvert this argument. Either our investment programme is planned to produce what people are going to buy or it is not. I should have thought that it was wiser to leave industry to plan the production of what the market needs. If we interfere and say to one firm, "You will produce this" and say to another firm "You will produce that," we shall finish up with a shortage of goods which people want to buy and a surplus of articles which people do not want to buy. If the motor car industry represents such a high proportion of the expansion of the economy, it is because the demand for motor cars represents such a high proportion of the total increase in demand in the economy.
I should like also to refer to the hon. Member's extraordinary remark about property investment in New York when he said that it was a bad thing to make a profitable investment in the United States. [Interruption.] I do not think that I could make a statement about hire-purchase finance. I do not think there is anything that I could or should add to what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in the course of his Budget speech, which in any case seemed to me very clear.
On this question of investment in the United States, the principle of the party opposite seems to be that one should invest only in something that is unprofitable. Surely, it is a very good use of United Kingdom resources if we can use British "know-how" in property business, which is considerable, as the party opposite is aware because its members complain there is too much of it, and produce a substantial return to this country. Unless we earn a return on our overseas investments we shall not have a surplus out of which to provide the aid for the under-developed countries to which the hon. Member referred, and to which we on this side of the House are much wedded at the present time. I thought that argument was below the penetrating level of the hon. Gentleman's economic analysis.
We have had a very interesting debate which has ranged very wide indeed, and I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hallam on bringing forward this very important subject. I hope that in these circumstances he will be willing to withdraw his Amendment.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: In view of the extensive debate which has taken place and the reassurances of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question again proposed.

WORLD REFUGEE PROBLEM

7.31 p.m.

Mr. Albert Roberts: I beg to move—

Mr. Speaker: I should have made it plain that I am not calling the hon. Member to move his Amendment.

[That this House, recognising the extensive needs which still exist among refugees in many parts of the world, and noting the generous response already made by all sections of the British people to the World Refugee Year appeal, calls upon Her Majesty's Government to increase its contribution to that fund to a sum not less than £500,000 and give a further and more generous contribution towards alleviating the plight of the thousands of Algerian refugees in Tunisia and Morocco; and, while welcoming the recent relaxation in the health regulations which has allowed hardship cases to enter this country under sponsorship, during the World Refugee Year, is of the opinion that these facilities should be continued for so long as there is need, and urges Her Majesty's Government, when considering applications from refugees wishing to come to the United Kingdom, to give special consideration to those who are the victims of Nazi concentration and slave labour camps.]

He is entitled to discuss the subject matter on the main Question.

Mr. Roberts: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It will, no doubt, have been noted that the world refugee problem is receiving universal consideration. The response in the United Kingdom at present is most gratifying, but we are dealing with a problem which has touched so many people's hearts that I feel that Her Majesty's Government should at least make some additional contribution towards alleviating the plight of these people before the World Refugee Year comes to an end, on, I believe, 31st May this year.
A lot could be said about this subject. Many of my hon. Friends have seen the appalling misery of these poor people. We can all tell rather moving stories about them, and people have been roused by what they have heard, which is why the response to this appeal has been more than one would have expected.
This House, in particular, owes some kind of debt to the young men who first discussed the formation of a World Refugee Year. On 5th December, 1958, the United General Assembly adopted a resolution urging Governments to promote a World Refugee Year starting on 1st June, 1959, as a practical means of focussing interest on world refugee problems and to attract contributions and encourage national action. The idea originated with a group of young people in Britain, and it is wonderful to know that the idea started in this country. I am sure that those young people will have been amazed at the support that has been given to the idea throughout the United Kingdom.
What is a refugee? I am sure the more that one reads about this subject the more one wants to know about it. I do not look upon this as a political matter, although it is rather ironical that it is political issues which make refugees. Curiously enough, it was Lenin, when in exile, who said:
A refugee is a man who votes with his feet. There is a bigger pedestrian poll today than ever before. They vote for freedom. We ignore their votes at our peril.
It is strange to realise that the revolution in Russia was responsible for thousands of refugees. Why have these people been persecuted for so long? People are refugees owing to a political connection or belief, or because of membership of a political society, and therefore, being outside their own country, they do not receive the protection of their country. We have them in the Middle East, in the Far East, and on the Continent. They are all over the world. This has been going on not for one generation, but for quite a few generations.
Refugee problems have arisen throughout history as a result of war and revolution, and racial and religious persecution. The Huguenots came over in the seventeenth century bringing their crafts, ingenuity and skill. That was not all one-sided, for we gave them comfort and asylum and they gave us something which was of advantage to industry.
This problem should receive attention at an increasing momentum until it is completely solved. As a result of the Russian Revolution in 1917, 2 million people left Russia. Between 1890 and

1920 the Armenians were pesecuted by the Turks, resulting in 1 million of these people being scattered all over Europe. Most of us remember the Spanish Civil War quite well. This resulted in about a quarter of a million people leaving Spain and seeking refuge on the Continent. Some came to this country. So far, they have not been able to return to their own country.
Then, 400,000 German, Austrian and Sudeten Jews had to leave their country in 1959. In 1947, another half-million left that part of the world, some settling in this country and some in the Middle East. This has been one continuous process, particularly since the First World War. It is astonishing to realise that quite a number of Europeans are living in China, and many of these have now been forgotten.
In the name of humanity, I am surprised that the conscience of the world has not been roused much earlier than it has been. I am astonished, when we talk about civilisation and social advancement, to learn that we allow people to live in degradation and misery. I am sure that our feelings on this side of the House are equalled by the feelings of any political movement in the world, and I know that right hon. and hon. Members opposite feel the same sympathy. Her Majesty's Government have devoted a good deal of attention to the matter. Our appeal tonight, however, is that more should be done.
Three years ago, I was in Hong Kong. Anyone visiting Hong Kong, and seeing the squatters' camps there and the huts perched on top of buildings where people crowd together to live, cannot but feel moved by the appalling spectacle there. The poor Chinese people, of course, still burn joss sticks to keep away evil spirits and from time to time huge conflagrations break out, fire rages through the camps, and lives are lost, but, in a few days, the camps spring up again and the same conditions are repeated.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gates-head, West (Mr. Randall) has been living as a refugee during the past week and he has recounted his experiences to me. He tells me that it is a considerable hardship to exist for two days in such conditions. How terrible it must be for millions of people to continue their lives, year in and year out, in such conditions.
In Hong Kong, the Government have done tremendous work, but, in spite of what they have done and what has been done from this country, the intractable refugee problem there is as severe now as it was two or three years ago. Before the war, the population of Hong Kong was about 1½ million. Today, it is 3 million. The only hope lies in more money and more visas. In that way, some amelioration of conditions in Hong Kong could be brought about. It is a massive problem, and we shall continue to speak about it until it is completely solved.
In the Middle East, the ten months' campaign between the Arabs and the Israelis, from April, 1948, until February, 1949, resulted in the flight from Palestine into neighbouring territories of nearly 1 million destitute Arab refugees. Those Arab refugees have endured appalling conditions for nine years now, in exile. The situation has become so stagnant there that the refugee has become an institution; the ration card is his only security. When thinking about this perpetual Arab refugee problem, it is well to remember that more than 400,000 Jews have been forced to leave their homes in Iraq, the Yemen and North Africa. They were not counted, as many of them found homes in Israel. What a complex problem it all is. It impinges upon some of our political difficulties, and, because the political issues are still unresolved and there is as yet no satisfactory settlement there, the future for the refugees seems hopeless.
The whole world faces a serious moral challenge. When one sees the conditions in which refugees live in Hong Kong or elsewhere, it is easy to be greatly moved, but, when one returns to a decent standard of life in one's own country, one tends to forget. No hon. Member on either side of the House will deny that, When confronted with the spectacle of how these unfortunate people have to live, he has said to himself, "Cannot we do something to help?"
In Europe, there is a great problem. Many of the refugees are chronic sick. Some of the children we see running about there were born in the refugee camps and have never known a home. Some local authorities in Britain are assisting in a small way. In my own constituency, we are giving a home to

one family and helping to find work for them. A wonderful response is being made there and elsewhere in Britain, as I know very well. Much good work has been done by the United Nations. But much more could be done. When Russia reasserted her authority in Hungary, the obstacles were overcome. In 1956, when the trouble began—I shall not discuss the political aspect of it at all—250,000 people left Hungary. One hundred and eighty thousand went to Austria and 20,000 went to Yugoslavia. Special efforts were made to find new homes for them. Trade union leaders went to the Continent and arranged for people to be brought to this country, and they are now being assimilated with our own people. Some went to Canada, some went to Australia, and some went to the United States of America. By the end of 1958, there were only 15,000 left. We had dealt with 250,000 people out of Hungary.
Why can we not do something about the others? We can do it if we are determined. Admittedly, this country cannot do it alone, but our purpose in this debate tonight is to focus attention on the problem once again and to remind the Government that the people of Britain are still interested, as has been clearly shown by their reaction to the World Refugee Year.
Britain has always been a haven for the refugee. I mentioned the Huguenots, and I could cite many more examples. I appeal to the Minister. If we make even a small gesture here this evening, it will echo throughout the world. There are 78 countries associating together now on the refugee problem, but the World Refugee Year cannot go on indefinitely. It will succeed to some extent this year, and a tremendous effort has been made. The work of many of our local people in Britain deserves the highest congratulation. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams), just an hour ago, told me of what happened at one school where his daughter is a teacher. It was suggested that something should be done for the World Refugee Year, and in a short time that teacher raised £150.
This is not a political matter. The Government must realise that, if they are prepared to go a little further, they will have the full support of the whole


country. Let us give that moral leadership about which so many hon. Members speak when discussing other political issues. How can we go to bed each night to sleep believing that everything is all right with the world? We know very well that it is not. By a determined effort, we can do a great deal towards solving this terrible problem.
Can we make a definite offer here this evening? I am sure that every hon. Member who will speak in this debate will support the World Refugee Year, but it is our job to do more than that. We must lead these unfortunate people out of the unreal into the real. It is our job to lead these people out of the darkness into the light. Only by talking about the problem and by galvanising people into action can we do this.
I hope that the Minister will at least give us some hope that more will be done before 31st May. I should like the Government to increase our contribution from £200,000 to £500,000. This would set an example. I know that this country has done much in the past. Whatever Government have been in power, there has always been a spirit of generosity. I am not criticising the Government. My own party, when it was in power from 1945 to 1951, also did a tremendous job for the refugees. From 1951 to 1960 much has been done for them. When I cast my mind back to 1939 I remember that millions of pounds were set aside to help Czech refugees. A kind of trust was formed to help them. I remember what was done for the Poles who fought with our countrymen and who have now become part of our life and of our character. They have been completely assimilated in our communities.
I appreciate all that and I thank the Governments of both parties for what they have done, but the object of this debate is to appeal that, as a gesture, our contribution of £200,000 should be increased to £500,000. People in Great Britain have responded far more than the organisers of the World Refugee Year anticipated. This House owes a a debt to all those organisations that have worked tremendously hard during the last eleven months of this year in helping to alleviate the suffering that exists, these festering sores, in different parts of the world. I trust that the

Minister will say something which will give us a little confidence and I hope that something more will be done before 31st May.

7.53 p.m.

Sir James Duncan: I think that the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. A. Roberts) has done a service to the House, to the country and to the cause of refugees scattered, as they are, in all parts of the world in raising this matter tonight. We should be grateful to him for the opportunity given to us of supporting, in general, his view.
I have no acquaintance with Hong Kong, but I know sufficient about that territory to know of the appalling congestion there. The Government of Hong Kong should be congratulated on the tremendous work that they are doing in dealing with refugees from Communist China. The hon. Member knows far more about the detail of this matter than I, but from such reading as I have been able to do I am overwhelmed with admiration for the way in which the Government of Hong Kong have tackled this extremely difficult problem.
The hon. Member mentioned Arab refugees from what used to be called Palestine. I think that the first speech that I made on being re-elected to this House in 1950 was on that problem. Both on humanitarian and political grounds, it seems to me essential that before we can get rid of our Middle Eastern problems we must first settle the refugee problem. It is extremely intractable. There is all the religious opposition between Jew and Arab. There is the political use by the Arabs of the refugee problem which makes it a political rather than a humanitarian problem. Unless our diplomats at the Foreign Office can in some way break through that impasse, I cannot see how that aspect of the refugee problem will be resolved.
From what one reads, one is appalled by the conditions in which refugees live. They have nothing to do. They are housed in camps. They are hopeless and helpless, and they are increasing in number.

Mr. Harry Randall: Thirty thousand a month.

Sir J. Duncan: A solution of this problem is demanded from the world.


I believe that if the refugee problem were solved it would be the first step towards a settlement of the political problem, in spite of anything else that may occur in these disturbed regions. They are certainly disturbed regions because, although they may be comparatively quiet at the moment, there is an element of danger which may explode in any of these countries.
I would impress upon my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State the necessity of keeping this matter very much in the forefront of Foreign Office policy, both here and at the United Nations. Meanwhile, I only hope that the contributions which we, the United States and other nations have made to keep these people alive—that is really all that they are doing—will continue. Her Majesty's Government have not a bad record in this matter. The British and United States Governments have been good, but I believe that some other Governments have not been good in trying to keep these people alive until a settlement can be reached.
I now come to the problem in Europe. I leave out the Algerian-Tunisian problem, which is mentioned in the hon. Gentleman's Amendment, because I do not think that he himself mentioned it. I hope that in the course of the solution of the war in Algeria, which is mainly a French matter, the refugee problem there will solve itself.
In July, 1958, I made a suggestion in the Scottish Grand Committee when I first heard that there was to be a World Refugee Year. It was not taken up, but I should like to repeat it in outline. It came to my knowledge that refugees left in Europe were not allowed to be transferred to any other country if one member of the family had tuberculosis. I suggested that Scotland, whose rate of tuberculosis has gone down miraculously in the last ten years and which now has empty sanatoria because patients are no longer available, should, as a gesture, set aside one sanatorium for refugees from Europe who have tuberculosis. We have the doctors, the staff and the up-to-date equipment, but in some sanatoria we no longer have the patients.
My suggestion was that this should be Scotland's contribution. I took it up with the Scottish Office and with the United

Kingdom World Refugee Organisation, whose Chairman is Baroness Elliot of Harwood, but I have not had much success. It certainly would have been a gesture. There is probably a reasonable answer in that the refugees in the camps in Europe do not like to be separated from the rest of their families. My idea was that only the tuberculous member of the family should be brought over to Scotland and treated and cured, after which the family would be free to go to other countries which then would be willing to receive them. It was thought however, possibly rightly, that the families would not like to be parted, particularly from a child who was the one member of the family who had the tuberculosis. For that reason, nothing has come about.
I hope, however, that in spite of that gesture from Scotland being turned down, even though it may have been rejected on good grounds, my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State will be able to say that, in addition to Sweden, we are willing to receive refugee families from the camps in Europe, even though one or more members of a family has a disease—tuberculosis seems to be the most common—which could be treated in this country, and to allow the whole family to come in.
I hope that if I cannot succeed in my appeal purely from the Scottish point of view, Britain will enlarge its welcome to the families while the one member of the family who has tuberculosis is being treated and that we will give them a welcome and give them housing and work so that they can become settlers in our midst.
The hon. Member for Normanton spoke of the Poles. Her Majesty's Government have a fine record concerning the Poles, and also the Hungarians. We have carried out the ancient liberal policy of Britain in welcoming refugees from political persecution. The problem is getting much more difficult, however, because this is now an overcrowded island. Although, for the time being, employment is good—it may not be quite so good in Scotland, but it is good overall—and the men can get jobs if they can be fitted in, the time may come when things are not so good. It is then that difficulty could arise. A Pole who, as a result of his efficiency, succeeds in


becoming a foreman, might resent being told by the British who work under him that he must go so that the British may retain their jobs. That is the sort of problem that might arise in the future.
On the whole, however, Her Majesty's Governments, of either political complexion, have done remarkably well. I hope that the Government will continue on these lines and try to deal once and for all at least with the European refugee, even if they cannot at this stage deal with the Arab or with the Hong Kong refugee. The camps in Europe have been there quite long enough and it is time we got rid of them. With the co-operation of the United States and Commonwealth countries, and through the United Nations, we should have a real drive in this World Refugee Year to get rid of the problem, at least in Europe, and see what we can do in the future to deal with the political aspect in the Arab countries, in Palestine and in Hong Kong.
It is not entirely a question of money. So far, I understand, Her Majesty's Government have offered £200,000. A tremendous local effort is being made and the local interest which is inspired through it is likely to do more good than merely the extra £300,000 that the hon. Member for Normanton wants from Her Majesty's Government. It is a question of arousing the public, so that the British people as a whole can realise the problem. In their warmheartedness they would not only subscribe to the success of the World Refugee Year, but would welcome some of the refugees into their homes. It is not so much a question of an extra £300,000 from the taxpayer, but of stirring the interest and sentiment of the British people. If we get the British people's sentiments aroused, they will respond in the way that they always have done.

8.6 p.m.

Mr. Barnett Janner: I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. A. Roberts) on having introduced this subject, which to me means something much deeper than the introduction of an Amendment to increase by £300,000 the contribution Britain is making to the World Refugee Fund.
It is no exaggeration to say that if we had fully appreciated the meaning of helping refugees when the refugee problem was raised in this House some twenty-seven years ago, we might have been in a position to save millions of lives. If the imagination of the world had been stirred by some of the speeches that were made in those days, including a speech by a former Prime Minister who at that time was an outstanding back-bencher, the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), we might have avoided a considerable part of the tragic circumstances which resulted from people not realising what it meant for men and women to be driven not only from their homes but into the torture of inhumane and horrific places, which eventually led to many of them—including some 6 million of my own coreligionists—losing their lives.
Therefore, when an Amendment of this kind appears on the Paper, I am not surprised to hear the kind of sympathetic speech to which we have just listened from the hon. Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan). It is the type of speech that comes from Members in all parts of the House. It is a pity, however, that there is not a full House to discuss this topic, which touches one of the greatest principles of all religious and ethical people, namely, the belief that "I am my brother's keeper." For that is precisely what it amounts to.
I mentioned this at a dinner held recently by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which has had a considerable amount to do in dealing with the problems, amongst others, relating to refugees. At that dinner the Duke of Edinburgh, in the course of a magnificent speech, himself referred to human relations. That is what we are dealing with tonight, and that is why I say that my hon. Friend is to be congratulated upon taking an early opportunity of bringing home even more vividly to the House and through the House to the country what, indeed, up to now has already been brought from the country to the House—in a significant way.
There are only a few weeks left till the end of World Refugee Year, as far as this country is concerned. Already amongst the British public is has been a very great success. When a few individuals made the suggestion of having


a World Refugee Year the British public at once warmly supported the idea: with such fervour, indeed, that even we in this House and the Government found ourselves compelled—I do not say entirely involuntarily—to do something about it. Public opinion was so very strong that it would have been impossible, even if we had wanted to, to have ignored the urgency of World Refugee Year, and all that it means. From the outset that was appreciated generally throughout the country, but a little reluctantly, if I may say so, by the Government in so far as money was involved. I believe I am not complaining unduly, but £200,000 was a small sum to contribute towards such a very great and important issue.

Sir J. Duncan: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, of course, that is in addition to all the money the Government allocated towards, for instance, the Arab refugees?

Mr. Janner: I think that the Government, whether of one party or the other, have played their part admirably. I am not denying that for one moment. I say it of both parties. I recollect the days of the Labour Government, whom I had the honour to support, when some 90,000 Polish refugees were brought in. for instance.
But that is not the point. We came to a year in which we wanted to emphasise to the world and to our own people that this was a problem which should be met on a scale consistent with the grave nature of the problem itself.
I know what the answer is likely to be: we want the people in the country themselves, as individuals, to do a voluntary job. That, however, is not quite the point. The point is that we ought to set a lead, not only to our own people in Britain but to other countries, so that in other places they may do their utmost, as we have tried to do in the past. I am not in any sense trying to deprecate what has been done in the past, but this is a crucial year in which we have set about a specific task, and in which we ought to try at least to bring to an end the European tragedy of 100,000 people still living in or outside refugee camps after fifteen years of it.
It is unimaginable, I think, to most of us in the House or even in the country

what that means. I doubt whether anyone can realise what it means to a person to be stuck for fifteen years in those camps, or even under worse conditions outside, among people who are civilised people and who, at the same time, feel a hopelessness and frustration in life which would reduce most of us, I think, to a state of desperation. That is the problem with which we are confronted.
I follow the hon. Member for South Angus in what he said and also pay tribute to the United Kingdom delegates at the General Assembly of the United Nations who took the initiative and succeeded in getting one of the biggest majorities in favour of introducing World Refugee Year. As the initiator of this great humanitarian venture, it was naturally the privilege of our people and that of the Government to see to it that the year was a success in Britain. The people, and the organisations representing the people, have done their duty. The original target of the United Kingdom Committee of £2 million has already been far surpassed. I think that now the sum raised is about £3 million, and the target has been doubled to £4 million, and there seems to be a very good chance of getting the £4 million before 31st May.
As compared with that, I am sure the official contribution by our Government is really not up to what it should be. All that my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton is asking for is 12½ per cent. of what the people themselves have decided to contribute. Surely we ought to pay up that 12½ per cent.?
Other Governments, in spite of the amounts which have been contributed by their peoples, have given generously. I think we ought to pay tribute to some of the other countries' success—that of Norway, for example, which contributed a much larger sum per head of the population than even we have done.

Mr. Randall: They have given 3s. 9d. per head of the population.

Mr. Janner: Yes, 3s. 9d. per head of the population. Nevertheless, I would say that we can be fairly satisfied with the results in the private sphere, and the High Commissioner for Refugees, Dr. Lindt, has expressed his deep gratification and his praise for the British effort.
Recognising this, we must not overlook that much remains to be done.


There is justified hope now that the remaining camps in Europe will be closed in the next year or so, but there still remain 100,000 refugees from European countries, victims of the last war, and of its aftermath, living outside the camps, who have not been finally settled and who have to live in substandard dwellings and are hard put to it to earn sufficient to keep their families.
Experience with the refugees from Hungary has shown that once the imagination of the world is fired, even great problems can be solved fairly rapidly. It is a disgrace to our generation that fifteen years after the end of the war there are still victims who have not yet been able to find secure habitation, and yet the problem of the European refugees, as has been said, is a comparatively small one compared with that of refugees in other parts of the world.
I do not want to introduce any contentious matter which, rightly, has not been introduced up to now in this debate. It is a fact that there is the very large problem of the Arab refugees. I feel that I ought to say this, that for my part it seems much too much a political issue, the keeping of people in camps as a kind of political move. That is something which is tragic. I would only hope that some of those advances which have been made by Israel will be accepted by the Arab world so that they can sit down together to solve this problem. I hope the Arab world itself will take in with their own families their fellow Arabs in a similar way that Israel took to its bosom those who came penniless and, in most cases, in a very much more pitiful state, after having suffered torture in concentration camps, and who have been rehabilitated. More than a million refugees have been taken into Israel since the creation of the State of Israel.
This is a very large problem. All of us appreciate that and we are anxious to do what we can. We are also anxious to help in connection with the Chinese situation, which has already been mentioned. I will not enlarge further on that because I do not want to take undue time, although this is a matter which personally has caused me a considerable

amount of anxiety and tragic thought for many years.
The House would also agree that, although funds will help to some extent, the obvious thing is to try to get people settled in countries and in homes where they will realise that they are human beings and not pitiful wrecks in a condition of statelessness which prevents their attaining that human dignity which we pledge to give all men and women through the efforts of the United Nations. History has proved again and again that refugees properly handled and treated are an asset to the countries which receive them. My right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) will remember the Jewish refugees who came to South Wales and in Tonypandy and Treforest and elsewhere built up new industries which were of enormous help to the local residents, as did the Flemings and the Huguenots in the past. If people would only realise that the admission of refugees does not mean that the receiving country suffers, the point of view of all countries would be changed.
I say with some pride that there is one small State which has endeavoured to do something in that direction in recent years. It is one of the jewels in the crown of the United Nations: Israel, which, in spite of the terrific financial stress and strain under which it works, has tried to provide people with homes and make them feel that they are once more dignified human beings. The result has been startlingly successful. If the international community took that lesson to heart perhaps there would be no need for debates such as this.
We are coming to the end of World Refugee Year and I would ask the Government, even if only as a gesture, to give other countries a lead and increase their contribution by £300,000. Of course, it would be only a token amount in comparison with the vast pool of funds necessary, but it would be a lead to the rest of the world. If our country has not now the power of arms and the strength of armaments which at one time it had, it has a much greater asset—the force of conscience, the outlook which believes in treating human beings as human beings and in fostering human rights. Here is an opportunity for us to show in a modest way that this country in this respect stands where it always


stood and that we are anxious that the world should follow us. I believe they will if we take the lead

8.25 p.m.

Mr. C. M. Woodhouse: I should like to say a few words about each of the two main questions which are embodied in the Amendment—the question of money and the question of the admission of refugees into this country. The two questions are, of course, closely related because the more refugees we decide to admit to the country the more money will have to be found. I am sure, from what has been said already in the debate, that I can confidently preface my remarks by claiming that there is no monopoly of sympathy or humanity on either side of the House in this matter. Probably I am not the only hon. Member who has been a kind of refugee, as well as having worked for other refugees. We all want to do the same thing and we are not so very far apart in how we want to do it.
The Amendment calls for a token larger contribution from the Government to the World Refugee Fund. I hope that this call will be successful. Indeed, I believe that it will be. But even when we call for such an increase, I hope that we shall not lose sight of one fact which I think sets this country apart from almost any other country in the world, and that is the vigorous tradition of private generosity and voluntary effort among British people, of which abundant evidence has been shown in the last year.
I have seen refugee and relief work being done in other countries with British private participation, financed by British private funds. I can think of several European countries which are not doing badly in the world today, where British charitable organisations are still at work with British funds with the co-operation of the Governments concerned, but with very little or any corresponding contribution from private sources or individuals in those countries. It is not because they have not the money, but because they have not the tradition of voluntary work. Their attitude is. "If the Government take care of this sort of thing, why should I bother?" Those countries are the poorer for the lack of a tradition of private generosity and we are the richer for having it.
When comparisons are made between what our Government give and what other Governments give, we should remember that in our case what the Government give is not the end of the matter, as it is in other cases. The private citizen and the taxpayer are one and the same person. I do not say this specifically on this occasion, but generally—that in the long run the more we contribute compulsorily as taxpayers the less we shall feel inclined to contribute voluntarily as private citizens, and that will be a great pity.
Perhaps I may be permitted to illustrate this with a personal reminiscence concerning an eminent Member at the time of the floods on the East Coast of England, when the Lord Mayor opened a fund which the Government agreed to double by subscribing pound for pound. I happened to have lunch with a member of the Government on the day when that decision was announced and I heard him say, "Only yesterday I sent my personal cheque for £10. I wish that I had known that we were making that decision, because then I need have sent only £5."
If Cabinet Ministers reason in that way, we cannot blame the man in the street for doing the same thing. It is this private form of giving that is our most valuable form of contribution, but that is not to say that the Government cannot go quite a way further than they have gone already without necessarily giving a bad example to the private citizen.
As to admissions into this country, as I know from the letters which I have received in my constituency, it will be a matter of private satisfaction that the Government have decided to increase the number of admissions and to relax the restrictions. But we must recognise that with the best will in the world the admissions which we can make into our overcrowded island will be no more than a drop in the ocean compared with the vast scale of the problem, and the little we can do will be applicable only to refugees in Europe. Indeed, the terms of the Amendment are specifically concerned with European refugees. They are more prominent in our imagination because they are nearer to us and because we have a clearer idea of their sufferings.
Even in their case we are only scratching the surface of the problem. There are millions more in Asia and Africa


for whom we cannot even scratch the surface by admissions to this country. It is impossible to imagine an influx into these islands of Arabs, Chinese, or Koreans on a scale which would significantly serve a useful purpose. The only practical possibility in their case is their resettlement in areas somewhere near the places from which they have been driven—that is what they would want themselves—and at least in a more gentle climate than our country can offer them. Their problems will not be solved by admission to this country or any other Western country, but by massive international action on the spot.
I want to say a word about the wider aspect of the whole problem. None of us has any illusions about the miserable and degrading lot of refugees all over the world. Miserable as they are in Germany, Africa, Greece, Hong Kong, Vietnam and the Middle East, they are not the only poor people in the world and some of them, harsh though this may sound to us, are not even among the poorer people of the world. The problem of world poverty is much larger even than the problem of refugees. It will still be with us when the refugee problem is solved. It is to this wider problem, which, again, can only be solved by international action, to which the Government's eyes should be turned next, when the World Refugee Year is over.

8.31 p.m.

Mr. Harry Randall: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. A. Roberts) upon the excellent way in which he introduced this debate, upon the thought and consideration which he has given to the subject and also upon his very good fortune. Not only is the House indebted to him for the debate but hundreds of thousands of workers in the country who have been working very hard on behalf of the World Refugee Year will be pleased that at least in this Chamber, and not only in another place, we have had the opportunity to discuss this subject.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton for giving us this opportunity, because we are in the eleventh month of the World Refugee Year and but for his good fortune it might well have been that this House would not have discussed it. Yet it was

a British initiative. The hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) was one of three angry young men. There have been no politics in World Refugee Year; it has been a great humanitarian appeal. I think that the House should commend him, together with his other two friends, on writing the article which caught the inspiration of the newspapers of this country and which attracted the attention of the Government. Then, in the United Nations, it was a British delegate who moved the resolution which was carried by probably the greatest majority given to any resolution.
My credentials for speaking tonight are that for two years I have served on the Council of Europe as the rapporteur for refugees. It has been an inspiring experience. There has been much tragedy and sometimes very much heartache, and it led me to participate in the work of the United Kingdom World Refugee Committee. I have had one of the most enjoyable eleven months that I have known in working with all sorts of people of all shades of opinion, with hon. Members on both sides of the House, with trade unionists and with many associations, including the representatives of fourteen voluntary agencies. The number of people who have come together with the one aim of making the World Refugee Year a success has been quite remarkable.
This refugee problem is the largest single human issue facing the world today. In the other place, during the course of a debate on World Refugee Year, the Lord Bishop of Sheffield used approximately these words: Our postwar world is haunted by the homeless man. He is not a ghost; he is flesh and blood, emaciated, starving. It has been estimated that there are well-nigh 14 million of such people around the world. He is no ghost. He is in our midst.
It is an ignorant world that does not know how a refugee lives and exists. Unfortunately it is an ignorant world, since those 14 million refugees exist because Governments have so far willed it so. That problem could have been settled long ago. I am not selecting any one Government when I say that it is to the shame of all Governments that, had they willed the solution of this problem, it could have been solved.
All the refugee asks is to cease being a refugee. My hon. Friend referred to the fact that during the Easter Recess I spent two days as a refugee. In order to arouse the conscience of the people in my constituency, I decided that I would live in a refugee hut for a couple of days. I lived on 1s. a day and it was pretty rough, but 1s. a day is approximately how much a refugee has to live on.
If we go around the world we can see some of the tragedy. In Europe there are 122,000 refugees even today; 22,000 are in camps and 100,000 are outside camps. It is estimated that in Europe there are 25,000 children born in the camps. There are three generations there—the grandparents, the parents and the children. For between fourteen and fifteen years there they have been in Europe, 122,000 of them.
Most of those living in the camps are the rejects—the handicapped, the T.B.s, the deaf—those whom nobody wants, those whom no country wants to take in. It may be that there is a wife or a child who is disabled, so no country will accept them and they remain. They are the hard core cases, 22,000 of them, in the camps. One of the things we want to do during World Refugee Year is to close the camps. I believe that this is possible. With the money that has already come in throughout the world, I believe that this objective is possible during World Refugee Year.
There are, however, 100,000 outside the camps and their condition is even worse. They are living in attics, in garrets, sometimes in holes in the ground. Some of them are living in unofficial camps, and during World Refugee Year a real start must be made to reduce that number. Away out in China there are 8,000 refugees of European origin. They have been refugees for thirty or forty years, since the First World War. They are aged. They have come to the twiligiht of their life and there is little time left for them. All that is needed are visas and money. Some of us believe that in World Refugee Year we can find an answer to their problems.
I turn now to the 1 million Palestine refugees. That is the figure for registered refugees; there may be even more unregistered. Children number 450,000, and 30,000 of them reach maturity each

month—then other children come along. In that way the population of refugees increases. There are 58 camps spread about over 100,000 square miles. These people are living in the most barren areas, many of them in mud huts and tents. It is perhaps ironical that 8,000 of them are living in the limestone caves of Bethlehem.
The immediate task there is first of all to keep these people alive. They are living on 1,300 calories a day. Members of this House, with a sedentary occupation, require 2,600 calories a day and a manual worker 3,600. Yet in Palestine these refugees are living on 1,300 calories a day. Not only have we to keep them alive, but because of the political problem we must teach them, if we can, to fend for themselves, train them in the various arts and skills in order that they can make a living and set up new communities. Probably one of the only ways of finding a solution to this problem is to show these people skills and trades so that these new communities can arise. That is a great task.
I come now to Hong Kong, where there are more than 1 million refugees. Two out of seven of the population are refugees. The Governor and the Government have done their best, but the refugees have swarmed into Hong Kong during these last few years. The children among them number 250,000. Thousands of them have been abandoned by their parents, who were too weak from hunger or illness to go on caring for them. One will find many a child begging on the streets of Hong Kong. The living conditions of these children have already been explained to the House—they live on the rooftops, on the hillsides and even on the sidewalks, where they lie down at night. The conditions in Hong Kong are indescribable.
The story is not complete yet. In Morocco and Tunisia there are about 250,000 refugees from Algeria. I am told that 50 per cent. of them are children, 35 per cent. are women and the remaining 15 per cent. are mostly old men. Their plight is most desperate. Only the other day I saw a letter written in October by two Quakers visiting Tunisia This is what it said:
We made a long drive up into the mountains to the frontier. When we got there we could hear cannon booming in Algeria,


across the border. Practically all the children we saw showed signs of extreme malnutrition—sores, hair falling out, thin, thin, thin. At Le Kef the children were being carried about too weak to walk—with tiny arms all bone, and hardly able to hold up their heads—at 5 or 6 years of age. Sores, scaling skin, swollen bellies, hair falling out, all these you could see. It is impossible to imagine people being alive and having worse conditions. Later, we went inside the mud and branches hut of a family of six. It was a circular place ten feet in diameter with a dirt floor …
So I could go on. Conditions in Algeria are indescribable. Those are some of the refugee problems throughout the world.
I urge upon the Government that something more should be done than has been done. The truly magnificent work of local committees for World Refugee Year has been one of the gems of this story of the refugees. World Refugee Year cannot be repeated. It comes only once. Every refugee thinks that it is his year. There are 14 million refugees who feel that this will be their year, but many will be disappointed, despite the great effort made in this country and throughout the world—and I understand that the estimated target for the world was to deal with about 16 million.
We shall not solve the refugee problem in one year. The people of this country have shown the will and the generosity to get rid of the problem, but because we cannot have another World Refugee Year, constant pressure must be put on all Governments to decide that this problem has to be solved. Because this is a once and for ever effort, I want the Government's contribution to be increased to at least £500,000.
I intervened to say that in Norway the population had given 3s. 9d. per head, while our contribution was about 1s. 4d. per head. However, I understand that the Norwegian Government are to give crown for crown. It was British initiative which set the example and gave the idea of World Refugee Year. Do not let us spoil it. Do not let us spoil it by allowing the initiative in Government contribution to pass to Norway. I believe that in due course the Government will be a little more generous than they have been. There is a strong case for a contribution of £500,000, although I would like to see a contribution of £1 million.
At the Council of Europe I tried my best to get through some recommendations to help in a solution of this problem. One was for dealing with the 8,000 refugee seamen. They have no home anywhere. They are on ships and are not allowed to land anywhere without travelling papers. Pilots welcome the harbour lights, but the lights are not for these refugees. They have to stay aboard. Only two or three years ago the eight maritime nations of Europe agreed that these refugees should be given travelling papers, but implementation of that agreement has been delayed because only six nations have signed it. The United Kingdom has signed. What progress has been made about getting the signatures of the other two nations?
Another recommendation which I put to the Council of Europe was that the Council's budget surplus—and there is usually a surplus—should be made available in World Refugee Year for a settlement to be established in Austria, so that we should not only do a job of work in rehabilitating refugees, but build something in Europe which would always be Europe—and I can think of nothing better than resettling refugees.
May I say a few words about the victims of Nazism, the 25,000 stateless, homeless urchins who are still awaiting their compensation? A thousand of them suffered medical experiments under Hitler. In 1954, in the Paris Agreement, the German Federal Republic agreed that a fund should be set up in order that they might have compensation. It has not yet been set up, and I should like to know what is the present position and what influence the Government can bring to bear in order that the compensation which was due to these people shall be given to them.
I will tell the Minister why I raise the matter here. In going about the refugee camps in Europe I talked to refugees, and I found in the course of my journeys that very many of them did not want to be resettled until they had received their compensation. They feared that if they went to another country that compensation would never be given to them.
I apologise to the House for speaking for so long. I should like to conclude with a reference to Algeria. The Government have given only £12,800. I put a Question to the Minister the other day.


I understand that there has been another appeal from the High Commissioner for Refugees. The United Kingdom World Refugee Committee has given £50,000, but the Government have given only £12,800, in the form of edible oil. That was the value of it. I think that the Government should make a greater contribution than £12,800.
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving the House the opportunity to discuss the refugee problem. I am very proud indeed of my countrymen, for I believe Chat we have shown an example to the world. Certainly, the initiative came from Britain, and we can at least claim the credit that the idea went round the world. I am proud of the response from our people. The target in this country was £2 million, but it has been raised to £4 million. Already £3 million has come in. Already £2 million has been spent. We have not been sitting on the money; we have already spent it in resettlement schemes. I am proud of the people of this country and I want to be proud of my Government. I think that I can be proud if, at the end of the World Refugee Year, the Government's contribution is at least £500,000.

8.54 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Chataway: The hon. Member for Gates-head, West (Mr. Randall) knows as much about refugees, I think, as anybody in the House. I know how much work he has done in this cause on the United Kingdom Committee for World Refugee Year during the last eleven months.
The hon. Member has graphically described the conditions of the refugees and something of what has been done. I agree with him when he urges that representations should be made with a view to obtaining compensation for those thousand victims of Nazi oppression, but I think that it would be wrong if the tone of the debate were to be entirely critical of the efforts which Germany has made, because among the majority of workers for refugees will be found much admiration for the efforts of West Germany on behalf of refugees. Not only do they have to settle the East Germans who come across the border but they also contribute up to 60 per cent. towards the resettlement of refugees within Germany; and, over and above that, they have had a voluntary appeal in West

Germany which has been extremely successful and they have stipulated that one-half of this money shall be spent on refugees outside the country. Their record is certainly not bad. It makes it all the sadder that the legitimate claims, as I believe them to be, of these relatively few people have not so far been met.
I want very briefly to urge upon the Government that they should heed the plea in the Amendment for an increased contribution. It should be realised that the response of this country has been remarkable. At the beginning of this year I thought that we should find it extremely hard to raise £2 million. Two and a half million pounds were raised after the Hungarian revolution when there was a sense of guilt, when the subject of refugees was a matter for headlines day after day, and when public interest was enormous. I felt that it would be hard, in cold blood, to raise £2 million. I felt that charity which was nearer at home would inevitably have more appeal for the ordinary subscriber. I felt that many people would feel that this was so vast a problem that it was hardly worth tackling.
This has not been the case. The British public has been able to visualise only too well the individual misery of which this vast problem is compounded. Every hon. Member has experience of extraordinary efforts being made. From Eton to the least affluent primary school, contributions have been made. About 1,000 committees have been formed up and down the country. All of these have come together voluntarily during the last eleven months. Corporate efforts, some of them of a very substantial size, have been made by cities, towns and boroughs. The W.V.S. is well on the way to collecting what will amount to £1 million worth of clothing, mostly to be sent to the Middle East.
Praiseworthy efforts have been made not only by organisations, but by individuals. The World Refugee office can testify to that. Large quantities of postal orders arrive from old-age pensioners and from other people who can ill afford to give. Over the weekend I came across a youth club in Sussex which has 20 members. It is on the way to raising £1,000. By means of extraordinarily hard work and appeals, and by putting on fetes, it will probably succeed.
All this is appreciated, but it is important that the Government should realise the size of the reaction in this country. Two hundred thousand pounds is a very small contribution indeed. It has been argued that this is right and that this is an occasion when the voluntary contributor should come into his own. It has been said that the British Government have led the way by initiating the motion at the United Nations and that Britain will have played her part through her voluntary contribution.
I do not believe that this is a tenable argument, because the appeal was not made to individuals on the understanding that the more they gave the less the Government would need to give. Among all those who have worked hard for World Refugee Year there is a feeling that the Government are bound to contribute more. Three hundred thousand additional pounds is a small sum. It will make hardly a dent on the vastness of the refugee problem, but it will give tremendous heart to those who have worked so hard during World Refugee Year and who have to go on working. If they feel that their efforts have not been recognised or in any way officially matched, their enthusiasm will be very seriously sapped.
Having said that, it is right that I should pay tribute to the Home Office. Those who have had dealings with that Department during this World Refugee Year have nothing but praise for it. They say that they have never found the Home Office so accommodating. They hope that the generous spirit in which the regulations have been interpreted during the past eleven months may continue, but I believe that at the moment it is money that is primarily needed.
It appears that more or less all of those refugees from Europe, whether disabled or not, who want to come into this country, will probably be able to do so, because the Government are putting very few barriers in their way. The only limitation, of course, is the fairly strict demands for sponsorship; anybody who is bringing refugees into the country must satisfy the authorities that they can maintain that refugee, if the worst comes to the worst, for seven years. That takes a great deal of doing, and one must point out that the practice in France, in Belgium, in Denmark and the majority of

European countries is that once these people have been accepted into the country they become eligible for National Assistance, at least.
It is true that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) argued, our way is very often the voluntary way, but I urge the Government to reconsider the size of their contribution. The motion that Britain introduced in the United Nations spoke not only of a voluntary effort towards solving parts of the world's refugee problem, but also of an effort by Governments. Our financial contribution does not match up to that of a number of other countries, and I feel that if the British Government can see their way to giving even this small extra contribution of £300,000 it will greatly enhance our prestige and give tremendous heart to those who continue to work for refugees.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. Robert Woof: I have several reasons for appreciating the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. A. Roberts) in bringing this important subject before the House and the nation. We have just listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway). In following him for a moment or two, I would only say, with respect, that we all fully understand that man's rise from barbarism to civilisation is supposed to be the theme of history. The desire for happiness has always been the simple and powerful motive that has drawn man from the savage and barbarious state in which nature placed him. By the sole aid of his faculties man has been able to raise himself to his present astonishing heights.
When we give serious study to the unceasing struggle between right and wrong, our conscience stirs at the thought of the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the Far East, in Asia, in Europe and the Middle East, who confront us with a gigantic human problem. While our chief interests in this House lie in the performance of strictly Parliamentary work, carrying with it a great weight of responsibility in human activity, this is one debate in which we want to express our deep concern over the tragedy of the refugees.
As has been said by my hon. Friends the Members for Gateshead, West (Mr. Randall) and for Normanton, and by the hon. Member for Lewisham, North, there can now be no doubt that, as a result of the intense publicity campaign, supported by the tremendous amount of work put in by local committees, the public, with an increased appreciation of the problem of the refugees, has responded magnificently to the appeal of the Social Committee of the United Nations General Assembly.
It can well be understood that hon. Members are sometimes overwhelmingly conscious of the housing problems of their own constituents, and that much of their sympathy is with those who are on the perpetual housing waiting list, and with those who are subject to the maximum ceiling of rent, which they cannot afford. Nevertheless, when we think of the incredible number of refugees throughout the world—estimated at 14 million—living in grim conditions, we should be guided by the strength and kindness of human nature and not allow ourselves to forget the hopeless plight of those people in all the demoralising conditions that surround them.
Although there are many widely differing points of view, there is much evidence to impress on the Government the need for a much greater contribution than they have already offered. Public opinion and support is now focussed on the national effort to support the World Refugee Year. The member churches of the World Council of Churches have given proof of their very strong support of the United Nations Refugee Fund, and are fulfilling with honour and humanity their responsibility in the never ending work for the refugees.
It is, therefore, with a great deal of satisfaction that I acknowledge the spiritual and moral encouragement and the financial support which they are giving in assisting the refugees in their plight. It may be true that humanitarian impulses are strong after a war, or after an upheaval in a far-off country, but refugees are the backwash of political and military events and as long as these events exist they excite public opinion and sympathy for the refugees who are thrown up. There is a formidable array of evidence exhibiting the consequences of the most degrading social conditions in these miserable refugee camps.
Many hon. Members have spoken of their experiences of refugees. My own experience was anything but pleasant when I visited refugee camps in Middle Eastern countries, including, of all places, the land of the Bible. My experience enabled me to form some idea of the circumstances of poverty and the countless human problems affecting these refugees. The appearance of the grief that is manifested among these people living among the squalor of their mud huts and tents gives one a vivid idea of the bad fortune that has befallen them, and, while lamentation can be expressed for the anguish that they suffer and the conditions to which they are exposed, I must say that sympathy is not enough when we consider the calamitous events that have brought them to this low level.
To the outside world, they are plainly and simply referred to as refugees, but when one sees many of them who are aged, blind, bedridden, crippled and absolutely destitute, living a life of exile in all kinds of makeshift buildings, it is then that one acquires the impulse of compassion for their frustration.
I do not know what the situation is like at present. I do not suppose that it has improved very much. The clothing situation was far worse than the food situation, as after ten years of exile many of them had very little left of their original clothing. This in itself is a major relief problem, and while I readily acknowledge that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has done and is still doing a remarkable job, it is beyond the capacity of any organisation to cloth over 1 million refugees.
The plight of these people is essentially a great human tragedy. Yet in spite of their numerous and difficult handicaps, they show a remarkable spirit of enthusiasm and interest for the education of their young children, and it is unfortunate that they should be reared in such surroundings. It is encouraging to see that these people have the perseverance to see that education is carried out in tents and open-air schools, but one must admit that all the education in the world in these circumstances cannot eradicate from their minds the most indescribable poverty and deep despair which surrounds them.
Suffering the pain of poverty is always a great evil in any state of living, and


while it may be said that poverty is never felt so severely as by those who have seen better days, it must be clear to all who believe in the ideal of Christianity that any deviation from responsibility to the pressing needs of refugees would carry with it the stigma of Social and ethical treason. Fortunately, we have the strong support of the public, and it is to their honour and dignity that they are rendering such fine first-aid to so many afflicted people.
I would remind the House that one of the world's greatest thinkers, Charles Darwin, in exercising his unbounded patience in building up his theory on the struggle for life, said:
As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would be to tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to men of all nations and races.
With this philosophy and outlook in mind, any introspection on the serious refugee problem today must make us realise the importance of Darwin's emphasis on the need for right intentions and outlook when faced with such lamentable situations as have arisen. In the greater cause of humanity itself, there is more need of co-operation today than at any time in history.
While we look forward to the future, either in hope or in fear, whatever may be our own ideas of freedom and equality, it hardly needs saying that if the Government would generously increase their contribution it would help to break down some of the barriers of disillusionment and uncertainty and serve to bring a fairer deal to refugees, at the same time giving satisfaction to us all in the knowledge that it would be in harmony with the ideals in which we believe.

9.17 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Creech Jones: There has been a notable unanimity of view in the House on the subject we are considering this evening, and I hope, therefore, that the sympathy with the refugees which has been expressed and the strength of our own feelings on the need for comprehensive action will bring

from the Government a reply conceding some of the demands which have been made in the debate.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. A. Roberts) on raising a subject on which there is such deep feeling. He must be gratified that the House has responded so splendidly to the views he advanced in his opening speech. It is not for me now to add very much to what has been said. I wish merely to direct attention to one or two outstanding points. We have had an extraordinarily informative and eloquent debate, and I congratulate those hon. Members who have taken part on the high quality of their speeches and the eloquence with which they expressed their views.
This problem is always with us. I recall from my younger days the exodus of refugees from Belgium at the opening of the First World War. I recall the demand made on some of us to help the Jews who were trying to escape from the wrath of Hitler before the last war. I remember the work done on behalf of the Russians who escaped from the Revolution. I know something of the tragedy when the mandate in Palestine came to an end and a great new problem was created in respect of refugee Arabs—a problem which remains unsolved to this day. One can go through a long succession of events, political revolutionary changes and wars, which have brought this problem forcibly before us and which have compelled international action. It is well that there has been international recognition that the refugee problem is incapable of solution merely on national lines and is one which is within the scope of international action.
Tribute must be paid to all the voluntary bodies and non-governmental organisations as well as Governments which have played an effective part in trying to bring relief and a solution to the problems of the refugees. That work in the international sphere goes back to when Nansen was appointed High Commissioner under the old League of Nations. Now, under the United Nations, we have an effective organisation which is trying to co-ordinate the work being done in various parts of the world, to mobilise funds and to render practical assistance in solving some of the legal and status difficulties. In a


way, the United Nations is responsible for 1½ million refugees, people whose roots have been torn up and who have no place in the world. In addition, there are the other great populations—I million Arabs in what used to be Palestine and neighbouring countries and 1 million people from China in Hong Kong. There are people on our own doorstep from Russia and from Nazi Germany. There is the problem of Algeria, with refugees in Tunis and Morocco. As soon as we relieve the position of refugees arising from one catastrophe, we are confronted with another which presents a completely new problem for solution. So the fact that we have become conscious that this is a problem which calls for international as well as national action shows that we are making some progress. We can pay tribute to the excellent work being done by the United Nations and its agencies as well as by the numerous non-governmental agencies which have been created to deal with specific problems.
This country may take credit for the initiative it has shown. I should like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) for the work which he did in bringing home to the people of this country and of the world the realities of this dreadful problem. We must also acknowledge the excellent work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, West (Mr. Randall) in trying to guide discussions in the European Council and to arouse public conscience in the hope that things of a practical character could be done.
We must acknowledge how tremendous has been the response in this country, how unanimous has been the feeling everywhere and how voluntary workers, societies and organisations of all kinds have worked hard to reach the target set in this country for this special year of money raising. The work of some of the societies, the small voluntary organisations and the local authorities, has been of immense importance in making people realise the depth and tragedy of a problem which continues to overtake the world. Now that the response has been so generous, we can make a special plea to the Government to give general encouragement all round to those who have made this great effort and ask them to increase the contribution they have already made.
I do not deny the contribution which the country has made to the problem in the past and continues to make year by year. The hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse), referred to the fact Chat the great under-developed areas of the world still claim our practical and financial attention. We all admit that the widening gap between the industrial nations and the less privileged countries presents a problem of tremendous magnitude which must be given much more constructive effort by the nations which have the resources, if disaster does not overtake the world, in terms of insecurity and war in the days to come. The refugee question is a special problem, however, calling for immediate amelioration and in which all should play their part. It should not be confused with the larger problem of building up the standards of living and developing the resources of the under-developed countries. It is a separate issue.
Moreover, in making our plea to the Government to increase their contribution, we should not say that they need take no further action because we are already helping in so many ways the people who are less privileged than ourselves. It is true that since 1945 up to last year, we had committed ourselves to the extent of over £200 million in respect of Colonial Development and Welfare, of which at least £187 million has been by way of grant. To that can be added a great contribution by the Colonial Development Corporation and in addition, a whole variety of other agencies. We have been paying something like £8 million each year to the various agencies and bodies operating under the United Nations. We have also been paying £2 million a year for the refugees in Palestine.
Nor do I forget the contribution which has been made by the Hong Kong Government concerning the problem in their midst. They have been carrying a heavy burden and at least one-third of their annual budget is now devoted to finding an answer to the refugee problem there.
In a variety of ways, we have shown great generosity towards needy causes in various parts of the world. But while we may have some gratification as to our own generosity, however, let us face this rather special problem of refugees and see whether we can do a little more to help forward the rehabilitation and


restoration to normal living of these people who are so wretched and so destitute as a result of the ill fate which has overtaken them.
The Amendment calls special attention, of course, to the new aspects of the problem—although they are not so new—of the large number of refugees across the borders from Algeria into Tunisia and Morocco. It is singular that in this instance no fewer than 80 per cent. of the refugees are women, young children, aged people—not able-bodied people, but people who are peculiarly unable to fend for themselves and who need to be succoured by those who have the facilities for so doing.
One might go through a long list of areas where refugees exist, but I think the British conscience has been stirred by the noble effort of the past year. The British conscience is anxious that a solution should also be found by trying to open the gates of some of the countries where these refugees are not yet permitted to go, by trying to make movement about the world a little easier for them, by trying to find some answer to the problem of their status. The British people hope that a great deal of new, practical work can be done in order that the refugees may be rehabilitated and have the possibility of a better quality of life.
In the Palestine case, too, no fewer than 50 per cent. of the refugees are children under 16 years of age. Schools are necessary, health arrangements are required and houses for those people to live in. This is practical work of relief which calls for urgent and immediate attention. It is not only a problem of just keeping people alive. It is a question, too, of rehabilitating them for civilised living, and also of trying to get them intergrated into the life of some other country.
Therefore, we are obliged to urge the Government that they look seriously at the plea which has been made in this debate tonight. The Amendment asks that £500,000 be set aside. It is, for the Government, not a very large additional sum, since they have already promised £200,000. The country has shown its intense interest by raising more than £3 million. Surely, in the light of this demonstration of the sincerity of the

country, of this feeling of sympathy and understanding the Government, in addition to what they are doing in Palestine and Hong Kong and other places, should make this further provision.
We hope that the Government will not only remove any restraints or difficulties which exist in the way of the movement or of the status of refugees, but will respond generously to the plea we are making tonight. As has been said, this country took the initiative at the United Nations and the people and private organisations have done much. It therefore behoves the Government who have gone so far, now to give a ready response, and encouragement to those who will continue this work in the days to come.
Even the money that is raised in this World Refugee Year will be quickly exhausted and the demand will continue and private efforts still be necessary. Therefore, however small the Government's contribution we ought to see that there is a continuing effort so that this problem may be finally solved. Certainly on behalf of my hon. and right hon. Friends—and I am sure that the feeling is shared in all parts of the House—it is our hope that the Government will respond generously and nobly to the request made in this debate.

9.36 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Robert Allan): On behalf of the Government I should like to thank the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. A. Roberts) for raising this matter and, in a more personal way, thank him for the manner in which he opened the discussion. We have had many knowledgeable and moving speeches, but none more so than that of the hon. Member for Gateshead, West (Mr. Randall), who has given so much of his time and his heart to this problem. I am sure also that we all welcomed the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway). As World Refugee Year nears its triumphant end, he must feel a sense of personal achievement which few of us can hope to enjoy.
As the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) pointed out, hon. Members who have spoken have shown that sincerity which comes from a knowledge and understanding of what is one of


the most tragic human problems. Their speeches have reflected our determination to make World Refugee Year an outstanding success, a determination of which we have all had first-hand experience in our constituencies. My hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) very rightly pointed out that this was not only a humanitarian matter but one with major political implications as well, and the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) drew attention to some of these in his moving speech.
This spontaneous effort by ordinary British people has had a quite extraordinary international impact. I saw Dr. Lindt, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in Geneva two or three times last week, and I can tell the House that he makes no effort to hide his pleasure and surprise at the success of World Refugee Year. His gratitude is very moving, especially to someone from this country, for he frequently points out that the generosity of those individuals, local committees and voluntary agencies who now work for World Refugee Year in 76 countries has as its source of inspiration the initiative of the British people. Therefore, all those who have worked here in so many ways, by thus inspiring their counterparts in other countries, have multiplied many times their own contribution to World Refugee Year.
I am particularly glad that so many and such sincere tributes have been paid by the hon. Member for Normanton, the hon. Member for Gateshead, West and others to the work of these people. I am sure, however, that they themselves would be the first to admit that their generosity and enthusiasm would not have found expression had it not been for the leadership of the noble Lady the Lady Elliot, the President of the United Kingdom Committee.
One of the most refreshing aspects of World Refugee Year has been that for the first time in a good many years the enthusiasm of the British public has been fired by a common cause. We are all in this, and it is not a question of leaving it to the other fellow. For once it is not "they" who should be doing something about it; it is we who are actually doing it, and doing it in a very impressive way too. This was surely the object of

those who sponsored World Refugee Year. It was to recreate a sense of personal responsibility for, in this instance, the plight of refugees, but who knows how much further, and with what benefit, this may spread?
This point was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse). I emphasise it not as an excuse for what has been criticised today as inadequate Government support to the Year's programme; I say it in all sincerity, and I suggest to the House that whereas a voluntary gift, like mercy, is twice blessed, a forced gift in the form of a Government contribution is by no means certain of a double benediction. [HON. MEMBERS: "Forced?"] It is a forced gift if it comes from a Government; it is a voluntary gift if it comes out of the individual pockets of the people.
Frankly, I do not believe that the support already given by the Government has been inadequate, nor can I accept the suggestion that the Government have failed to give the necessary lead in this matter. In the first instance, as hon. Members have pointed out, Her Majesty's Government sponsored the proposal for World Refugee Year in the United Nations General Assembly. We pledged £100,000 in its support from the beginning, when none but those with faith saw what the end might be. The Government were, so to speak, the instrument by which the idea in the minds of these three young British men was translated into a world-wide movement manifesting the humanity of ordinary man.
As the House knows, World Refugee Year was launched in June last in this country. Just as the Government had given a lead at the United Nations, so they sought to give a lead in this country by pledging a further £100,000 to the United Kingdom Committee.
Every hon. Member who has spoken this evening has urged the Government to make a further contribution. I know that in asking this hon. Members were expressing the views of many of their constituents. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary and other speakers from this Box have said many times that they are aware of these strong feelings throughout the country.


I think it has not escaped the notice of hon. Members that none of these spokesmen has so far given a negative reply to any questions on this subject. I regret that once again this evening I can make no commitment, although I can assure hon. Members that the Government are by no means unresponsive, either to the appeals that have been made or to the needs of the refugees themselves. I must ask them to wait until the end of the year for the Government's final response.
Many hon. Members have told us dramatically of the plight of refugees in many parts of the world—in Hong Kong, the Middle East, Europe, Algeria and elsewhere. As the right hon. Gentleman said, of course we have been only too well aware of this, for some years now, alas. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned to the House the various and sizeable contributions which the Government had made to the colonial development and welfare funds and other funds, but he might also have said that the Government have in the years since the war contributed no less than £200 million for relief to refugees and displaced persons. This sum has been used in all the areas mentioned except Algeria. That, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Gateshead, West knows, is a separate problem, but when considering a further contribution to World Refugee Year we shall have the High Commissioner's appeal for the Algerian refugees particularly in mind.
The hon. Gentleman also raised one or two specific questions. One was regarding refugee seamen. I can confirm that the Belgian Government have now ratified that agreement, so there remains only one Government, the Federal Republic, to sign it. I think we can hope that this will be forthcoming in the fairly near future. He also asked me a detailed question about the recommendation for the use of the surplus funds of the Council of Europe. The recommendation was, I think, that these funds should be made available to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This has not yet been agreed, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that Her Majesty's Government favour that course.
As regards his last specific point on the question of the compensation by the

Federal German Government to Nazi victims, I recently answered questions from him in the House on that subject, and I am afraid that I cannot go beyond saying that my right hon. and learned Friend is pressing the German Government on this matter.
I should now like to turn to the question of the admission of refugee immigrants into this country. The hon. Member for Normanton reminded us of our country's proud record in this respect. But it is not only the past of which we should be proud. I should like to remind the House that, ignoring all that was done before the War, since the end of it we have admitted to this country about 250,000 refugees. It is to their credit as well at to our own that they have been fully assimilated into the life of our people. Few realise that one in every 200 of our population has been a post-war refugee. We have thus maintained in recent years a humanitarian tradition which has been cherished for generations in this country.
When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spoke at the inaugural ceremony of World Refugee Year at the Mansion House, he said that as this was a small country we could not accept very large numbers. This was a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus today. The Prime Minister added, however, that there were special categories of handicapped refugees whom we should certainly try to help. We have not failed in this.
Soon after the beginning of World Refugee Year we readily responded to the United Kingdom Committee's proposal that 210 handicapped refugees and their families should be admitted to this country. By the end of 1959, arrangements had been made for the admission to this country of them all. Except for eight refugees still to come from the Far East, all of them have now arrived here. The Committee has since made a further proposal that more handicapped refugees should be allowed to come to Britain for resettlement. The Government have equally welcomed this approach and the emphasis given to the admission of handicapped refugees of long-standing. The basis for admission has now been widened so that it covers some particularly tragic cases whose resettlement has in the past presented


insuperable difficulties. One of the categories now admitted are those suffering from tuberculosis. My hon. Friend the Member for South Angus will be glad to know that T.B. is now no bar. Indeed, amongst the 200 refugees from Europe already admitted, I believe some 22 have been suffering from this disease.
Details of these new proposals were given to the House by my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of the Home Office on 10th March. I am particularly glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North paid tribute to the work of the Home Office. I know from my side how extremely valuable and painstaking it has been.
We have also now suggested that a preliminary survey should be carried out in order to establish the numbers of such specially handicapped refugees who wish to come to this country and who could be adequately sponsored by various organisations. I am glad to say that these proposals were welcomed by the refugee organisations and a Home Office team will be leaving this country next month to interview those refugees who wish to settle in the United Kingdom.
As I have said, the emphasis is put on the specially handicapped refugees. Our offer is, therefore, doubly valuable to them, for we shall be providing, free of charge, the facilities of the National Health Service to those who need medical treatment. I can assure the hon. Member for Gateshead, West that those who were victims of Nazi concentration and slave labour camps have not been overlooked in this scheme. Indeed, I am told that we expect that about eight out of every ten of the refugees who come here will be from Germany. I think I can also say in this connection something which Dr. Lindt told me last week. That was that he believed it was now within his power to close all the refugee camps in Europe.
None of us has any hesitation in praising the work done by the many organisations concerned with World Refugee Year or in acknowledging the great generosity of the British public. I hope that what I have said will have dispelled any doubts there may have been about the sincerity of Her Majesty's Government's support for this great enterprise. I trust—though I rather

doubt it—that I have also justified to the House the Government's decision to wait until the end of the year before making known their response to appeals for a third and final contribution to it.
I should like to end the debate by quoting a statement made by Dr. Lindt at a meeting of his Executive Committee in Geneva last week. He said:
We have had many very generous initiatives in the field of refugee migration during World Refugee Year, but it is indeed fitting that from the United Kingdom, cradle of World Refugee Year, there should come such a gesture that is nothing less than unprecedented. It is both a tribute to the generosity of the people and an indication of the sympathy of Her Majesty's Government for the cause of refugees.
Those heartening words will, I am sure, be a spur to us all in the final weeks of this unique endeavour to prove man's humanity to man.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Committee Tomorrow.

AGRICULTURE (POISONOUS SUBSTANCES)

9.54 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Agriculture (Poisonous Substances) (Extension) Order, 1960 (S.I., 1960, No. 398), dated 10th March, l960, a copy of which was laid before this House on 15th March, be annulled.
Despite the fact that we are praying against this Order we welcome it. We recognise that it consolidates and extends the present provisions. The effect of the Order is to bring the further substances to which it applies under the provisions of the Agriculture (Poisonous Substances) Act, 1952. In other words, it makes safety precautions obligatory. While we welcome the Order, we must do so not without concern, because it recognises that substances which are dangerous to those using them are being employed in agriculture and we have to recognise that that necessarily involves a risk to agricultural workers.
There is some difficulty about appreciating the extent of the extension. It would appear, on the face of it, that the purpose of the Order is to extend the precautions to substances the molecular structure of which consists of a bridged six-membered ring with substituents in


the ring. If, a little disturbed by such a graphic description, we turn to the Explanatory Note for elucidation, we find:
The Amendment consists of an addition to the list of such uses to which the Act is extended of all substances the molecular structure of which consists of a bridged six-membered ring with substituents in the ring—thus (inter alia) including the substance having the common name of endrin, which was the subject of a previous order.
So we are not much further forward.
In a matter such as this, when we have an Explanatory Note, I hope that in future it will be a little more explanatory. This is a matter of some public importance, because we, are here dealing with dangerous substances and we should have some idea of what they are. I have made some researches and I gather that the Order applies particularly to three substances, but I will await confirmation from the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, because I am not sure that I can pronounce them.
I turn for a moment to Part II of the Order, which consolidates the present provisions and, incidentally, deals with arsenical compounds. We welcome the fact that the Government have promoted the voluntary agreement that alkali arsenites will be withdrawn after the potato harvest this year. As we are dealing with these substances in this Order, we are entitled to ask the Government why we cannot have these substances prohibited now. I do not anticipate the Government's reply, but there may be sufficient reasons for that. However, we have recognised that these are dangerous substances and that they are replaceable, but we know that action will not be taken before next year. Why cannot the action be taken under the present Order? I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will take the opportunity of explaining why such a step cannot be taken now.
In spite of the fact that I am not sure what it means—and I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us—we welcome this extension because, at any rate, it means that safety precautions will be taken with substances with the molecular structure to which I have referred. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us why this provision should be made. I hope that it is for a very good reason. We know that we

have a voluntary system of notification, that we have an inter-Departmental advisory Committee and that recommendations are made. It is widely thought that the Committee might well be strengthened by independent members. Perhaps if that were the case it would be less necessary for me to make inquiries such as I make now. We know that we have this machinery, but we should like to know more about the reasons behind such an extension as this, because I think that it will be conceded on both sides of the House that there appears to be a need for wider and for fundamental research. I have no wish to criticise the manufacturers; on the contrary, I pay tribute to them for the research which they carry out.
I have referred to the notification procedure because I think that this is effective, but it is generally agreed that there is need for further research, and the Parliamentary Secretary knows that some of us are rather disappointed that the Minister did no more than follow the usual custom which he follows nowadays of setting up a committee to advise him whether he should have further advice. That is what has happened. We have a research study group, and I am glad to say that it has already begun its inquiries, but it is a study group which is to advise him whether it is necessary to have more advice on research.
If on no other grounds than those of public concern, I think that the case is made out that we should obviously be taking steps to ensure that such information as we can obtain is obtained. I have taken the opportunity of this Order to put this matter to the Parliamentary Secretary because, although I appreciate that the present steps are being taken in the light of information and research, it seems to many of us that it would be better if more research facilities were available to allay a public disquiet which must arise on the use of such substances in agriculture.
I say at once that I have no wish to be alarmist. We all recognise the invaluable aid to agriculture which these substances have been. We should also recognise that the manufacturers will take every step possible to seek less hazardous substitutes. Nevertheless, we should be satisfied that every possible step is being taken by research to assure


us about the consequences which may arise from the use of these substances.
I am glad to see that my hon. Friends the Members for Norfolk, North (Mr. Gooch) and Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hilton), representatives of the National Union of Agricultural Workers, are in the Chamber, and I hope Chat they will contribute to the discussion. I was interested to observe that the Union took the view that as far as it knew—and this is a tribute to the Order and its predecessors—there had been no fatal case since the safety regulations were introduced and very few agricultural workers have suffered harmful consequences from the use of these substances in agriculture.
Like the farmers and others engaged in the industry, however, the union wants to be in a position to say that the fears which people legitimately have about the use of these substances are groundless, and we are not in a position to say that unless we are better informed about research. During the Recess I read one of the books in a series published by the hon. Member for Carlisle (Dr. D. Johnson), entitled "Doctor in Parliament". Mention was made there of the curious epidemic of madness in France in 1951. I remember that it was eventually traced to the use of a chemical weedkiller which had somehow got into bread.
Since we gave notice of this debate, I have received correspondence from people who have been worried about the possible effects of these chemical substances. One does not know whether the worry and anxiety are justified. What we want to be sure about particularly is that we are adequately informed about the possible cumulative effects of the use of any of these substances. That means a good deal of continuous and prolonged research.
We accept and welcome the Order, but we hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to tell us that the Ministry will encourage an early report from the study group and that, if it is recommended, it will take steps to provide for wider research. The Explanatory Note says:
The Order is a pre-requisite to the making of amendment regulations under the Act …
We prospectively welcome those amending regulations. If we are to have them, I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary

and his right hon. Friend will take every opportunity of discussing these Orders in the light of experience over the past few years and, where necessary, strengthening them.
Points have been made about the use of protective clothing, more adequate safeguards, and the possible further regulation of spraying. I hope that these matters will be considered and that we shall not only be able to welcome the amending regulations but be able to recognise that the Government have gone even further in protecting those engaged in the industry. We hope that, particularly in the use of the new substances to which the Order applies, the Government will supervise the operation of the Order and ensure that, as far as possible, every safety precaution is taken.
My next point was discussed when we debated the provisions regarding clean food. I hope that the Government will pay attention to American practice. I know the difference between American practice and our own, but there is much to be said in favour of American practice. There, before the manufacturer can market the substance, he has to prove, first, that it is valuable to agricultural production, and, secondly, that it is safe. We have not the same procedure here. I have recognised the importance of the procedure of notification.
I should like the Government to consider a possible alternative approach, namely, to lay down that, when a new substance is being introduced, it should automatically come under these safety regulations. If that became unnecessary and the substance was proved to be safe without such precautions, the precautions could be dispensed with. If we took this step, it would go a long way to allaying anxiety about new substances being introduced.
While we do not seek to retard the use of substances that have been invaluable to agriculture and have helped us to get our present high yields, at the same time, in the interests of the manufacturers and of the industry, we must take all the steps we can to allay public anxiety. I hope that my suggestion will be received in that spirit by the Parliamentary Secretary.

10.10 p.m.

Sir Anthony Hurd: We are discussing a very complex subject and


one in which technical progress is going ahead very quickly, as, I am sure, the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) recognises. Most of the research is being done by the firms that sell these toxic sprays to farmers and market growers, and speaking as one who, though not directly concerned, is fairly closely connected with one of these firms, I am sure that if there is any development of their research about which the Minister would like to know, he will find their laboratories are open to the Ministry to check on the results being obtained.
I should like to underline what the hon. Member said about the invaluable service that these toxic sprays are giving to the farmers, to agriculture and to the country as a whole, as can be judged—taking account of the variations in season—by the increasing crop yields year by year. Fertilisers, better seed varieties and toxic sprays together have made a most remarkable contribution to the increase of 68 per cent. net output over pre-war years, in which we all rejoice. We must, therefore, be careful not to do anything to retard that progress, while ensuring that those who come into contact with these sprays—the farm workers, the farmers, and others who may, by mischance, get their hands on the materials—are fully warned of the risks they run.
We must ensure that, where necessary, protective clothing is supplied, and that everyone knows that he is using a tricky substance—I would not say a dangerous substance, because in many cases the substance is not dangerous if it is used as it is intended to be used. It is when it is used ignorantly, perhaps foolishly, or when it gets in the hands of the wrong people, that there may be a danger. Used with reasonable care and proper precautions, there is no great danger, as the record shows. Farm workers and farmers are being careful with these substances.
As a farmer, I am greatly impressed by the benefits resulting from the use of these substances when applied to arable crops and to grassland; getting rid of weeds that are either of no use or that compete with those crops. At the same time, I shall welcome most heartily the day when we do not need any of these toxic substances, and when the scientists

who work with the manufacturers have been ingenious and clever enough to devise alternative substances that are not toxic in any degree, but are effective. The firm with which I have something to do is anxiously looking forward to that day, and is doing its utmost to bring it forward as quickly as possible.
Mention has been made of the use of arsenite sprays for destroying potato haulm—killing off the top growth early in the autumn, either as a precaution against the spread of blight or to hasten the day when the crop can be lifted. It is true that the arsenite substances that have been used in recent years are more effective than the old sprays, but they are dangerous. This is one category of spray that can be considered dangerous. I know that one firm has already withdrawn its product, and that the other firms have agreed not to sell these arsenite products after this year. Therefore, unless, by then, the scientists have got something better we shall have to go back to the old sulphuric acid sprays. Sulphuric acid is not a very nice substance to use, but it is not so toxic as the arsenite sprays.
We can, therefore, say that the industry that provides agriculture with these substances is in a progressive frame of mind, is anxious to get rid of any suspicion of danger in its products, and will welcome the day when the word "toxic" no longer applies to any of their products. We can also say that farmworkers and farmers are taking due care when using these products, which do a very good job for agriculture and for the country in improving the efficiency and economy of our farming. For that reason, I hope that nothing that is said tonight will stop anybody from applying to their farms the advances of science up to date. As I say, I hope that those advances will soon bring us to the point when we no longer have to use any substance that is toxic.

10.16 p.m.

Mr. A. V. Hilton: I support the Motion moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), and I agree with what has been said by the hon. Member for Newbury (Sir A. Hurd) about the value of many of these sprays in present-day agriculture. We should be in a poor position without them. They


have made a very marked improvement in agriculture, but it is essential that these new poisonous substances should be controlled as were the others under the old regulations.
As a representative of farm workers, I have had considerable experience of watching these sprays being used on crops. Nobody was more delighted than I when the regulations were introduced a few years ago, because up till that time there had been a number of deaths and bad accidents among people who had been using sprays, and among others who came in contact with the drifting spray which had gone on to gardens and crops which were not intended to be sprayed. There is no doubt that the introduction of the regulations was of great benefit.
I am sure the hon. Member for New-bury will agree that to carry out these regulations has meant considerable discomfort to the operators who have had to do the spraying. At any time it is a very unpleasant job to use sprays of any sort, but with the introduction of the new regulations it has become increasingly difficult. However, these regulations are extremely valuable because they have reduced the risk involved in using these sprays.
It is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) said, that since the introduction of the regulations there have been no fatal accidents resulting from the use of these sprays. But we must not forget that all these poisonous substances are potential killers unless they are properly controlled and, therefore, it is essential that they should be covered by the existing regulations. For that reason, I am pleased to support the Motion.

10.20 p.m.

Sir James Duncan: I wish to say a few words about one spray which has been brought to my attention. The hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hilton) said that he welcomed the use of some of these sprays. So do I, but there are some which I think should be abandoned altogether. One to which I wish to refer in particular is the spray which was referred to by the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), namely, the arsenite spray. I am very glad that manufacturers have voluntarily agreed to stop its manufacture

next year, and I hope that no new manufacturers outside the agreement will manufacture it later.
I have been informed by a neighbour of mine of a 40-acre field of potatoes which the farmer was burning last year with an arsenite spray. My neighbour went round the field a day or two afterwards and he found 39 dead hares. There had been 12 coveys of partridges in the field and there was not one left. The bees were all dead and there was not a small bird left alive. That was all done by an arsenite spray, which is quite unnecessary in farming and ought to be stopped.
I hope that in default of this voluntary agreement being observed by the existing manufacturers and by any new manufacturers, if my right hon. Friend has not got the power to enforce the prohibition of this arsenite spray, he will take the necessary power, because I am sure that we shall all be willing to give it.

10.22 p. m.

Mr. E. G. Gooch: I feel sure that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary understands our main object in moving this Prayer. It is to ensure not so much an annulment of this Order as an expansion of the protection to which we think farmers and farm workers are entitled. We are asking the Ministry to provide further protection against what are termed "spray-mad" farmers, of whom there are quite a number today.
I do not suggest that the spraying of certain crops has not been effective. It has. The increased output today on our farms is in large measure due to the spraying of crops. But the men who operate the spraying machines are entitled to the utmost protection, and our main point in moving this Prayer is to ensure that the Minister shall not merely confirm what has already been done but will bring into operation further protection as new sprays are introduced. If the Minister will do that, I am certain he will have the sincere thanks of the men who operate sprays on the farms.

10.24 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I hesitate to intrude in the almost conspiratorial atmosphere of an agricultural Prayer, since I know little about agriculture and less about chemistry.
Lawyers are sometimes accused of being obscure in their language, but we appear to be quite unable to compete with the agriculturists. If one of my hon. Friends attempted to make a speech in Welsh in this Chamber he would, I think, be ruled out of order, but the Government of the day can with impugnity describe poisonous substances as
… substances the molecular structure of which consists of a bridged six-membered ring with substituents in the ring ….
It is not boxing. But this is part of the law of the land. It is to be enforced and it is to affect farmers and farm workers. I call this a "dog and double duck", because I do not Slink that that sort of language would be understood in the "Dog and Duck". Is it absolutely necessary to employ language like that? I recognise that it is clear enough to a scientist, but this Order will not be enforced in relation to scientists. It will be enforced in relation to agriculturists. What they know of these substances is the names under which they are marketed. One instance is given, endrin, and I understand that there are one or two other similar instances.
If we are to make laws which affect people, which carry penalties in appropriate cases, and which, in any event, will interfere with people's daily work and life, we ought to do our best to convey our meaning in language which will be understood. I have no doubt that the Joint Parliamentary Secretory understands exactly what this means, but I am not so certain about the rest of us. I do not. All I am told is that the Order refers to endrin and some other things. Surely, the ordinary name can be used. If there is any difficulty about that, it is quite possible to fix a name to any of these substances which will be marketed—they are the ones with which we are here concerned—and so convey to people in language which they will understand something which at present we choose to convey in language which they will not understand.

10.27 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. J. B. Godber): I am grateful for the comments which have been made on the Prayer and I am glad to know—I felt sure that it was so—

that it was moved merely for elucidation and to enable me to explain the true position. I will come later to the cri de coeur, if I may so call it, of the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). I should like to deal, first with the substantive points in the Order and take up the matters raised by hon. Members who have spoken.
The parent Act to this Order, the Agriculture (Poisonous Substances) Act, 1952, gives to my right hon. Friends the Minister and the Secretary of State power to make regulations to protect workers in agriculture against risks of poisoning arising from the use of certain substances. The Act specifies two groups of chemicals, first, dinitro-phenols, dinitro-substituted phenols and their salts, and, secondly, organo-phosphorus compounds. Those are rather complicated names. I doubt whether they would be understood in the "Dog and Duck", but they were laid down in the Act which was passed in 1952.
The Act enables my right hon. Friends also to make Orders extending the Act to apply to further substances. We have had extension Orders dealing with organo-mercury compounds, arsenical compounds, fluoroacetic acid and its derivatives, and endrin. All those Orders have been made already, but the particular Order that we are discussing now consolidates the previous extension Orders and extends the Act to cover the particular group of chemicals which has been referred to, namely,
Substances the molecular structure of which consists of a bridged six-membered ring with substituents in the ring.
I appreciate that that description is not an easy one. It is a convenient description for chemists. The nearest simple description I can give is this. A common habit of carbon, which is the main constituent of most of these chemicals, is for six atoms to form a ring, usually drawn as a hexagon with a carbon at each point. To make this union stable, each atom, which has four arms or hands with which to join up in this way, uses three of them, and if the fourth one is used for tacking on a hydrogen, then the result is the well-known chemical benzene. Sometimes, two hydrogens at opposite corners may be replaced, perhaps, by an atom or by a group of atoms, and this gives a bridged six-membered ring as in endrin.


I have produced a small diagram which. I thought, might help hon. Members. I am sorry that I cannot provide more copies. I have, however, laid it on the Table.
That is the simplest description I could give, although I could give much longer descriptions. I shall, however, seek to show that in spite of the points made by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering, it is not necessary that everyone should be necessarily conversant with the exact details. It is, however, necessary that we should specify details in the Order in the way in which we have done.
The new group to which I have referred does not cover as many compounds, for instance, as the organo-phosphorus group, which was included in the Act. It does include endrin, which is already regulated, and it will also include endothal and its salts. It is possible that other new crop protection products in this group will be developed and marketed and we are trying to provide for them. Where necessary, regulations will be made under the Act to require workers to wear appropriate protective clothing and to take proper precautions when using chemicals in this group.
Consultation with interested organisations, as required by the Act, have just taken place in respect of endothal and its salts. We hope that regulations will shortly be made and be laid before Parliament. It is these regulations to which the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) referred. They will lay down the specific chemicals which come within the terms of the generic term "the six-membered ring".
The making of regulations under Section 1 of the Act is entirely a separate exercise and the 1956 regulations make detailed provision for the protection of employees using certain individually-specified substances. I am happy to confirm, as has already been said tonight, that since the revised regulations came into operation, no worker in agriculture has died as a result of using a poisonous substance. I was glad to have the comments of hon. Members opposite in this respect.
Regulations have been made for only 18 substances out of the 160 crop protection chemicals available for use in this country. I emphasise that figure.

It bears out very much what my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Sir A. Hurd) said when he spoke of the desire on the part of manufacturers to provide chemicals which are not dangerous. The figures which I have instanced show how far they have been successful so far. It is encouraging to hear also that they are continuing, and, indeed, intensifying, their efforts to produce more and more of the non-toxic type of chemical for spraying which will be safe both for workers and for wild life.
We hope that the regulations for the three new compounds will be made shortly. Three of the 18 more toxic compounds which are at present regulated have already fallen into disuse and a further two, the alkali arsenites, will not be used after this season.
Hon. Members have asked why we are continuing the arsenical sprays for one more season. The reason for this is that undoubtedly these sprays have been extremely useful and that when properly used, there is no real danger to workers. There must, however, be the greatest care in their use and we have seen the difficulties that have arisen, particularly in relation to wild life and domestic cattle. It is extraordinary how, after their use, these arsenites have seemed to have a fatal attraction for cattle. Cattle have broken through hedges to get into the fields, and a number of them have been killed in this way. We have thought that in view of the balance of interests involved we ought to give one more season to enable manufacturers to concentrate on producing some other kind of chemical which is not so toxic and yet effective in its use.

Sir J. Duncan: Or on some other method.

Mr. Godber: Or some other method. During this season we are going to emphasise more than ever in our warnings the need for care. We think that this is a fair provision to make this one season to enable an additional substitute to be found and not to handicap the farmers who have been relying on this substance to a very great extent. I do assure hon. Members that we are certainly very anxious to provide every opportunity to prevent danger from


arising, and in this particular case, as I have indicated, we are taking special care to warn all those concerned.
Very careful watch is kept by the Advisory Committee on Poisonous Substances on other types of chemicals. This Advisory Committee always does consider all new chemicals which come forward. That meets the point raised by the hon. Member for Sunderland, North. AH new poisonous chemicals coming forward are considered by this Advisory Committee to see whether there is need to bring them within the scope of regulalations. I am glad to give him the assurance that his point is covered. If the Committee recommends that the provisions of regulations should be extended to substances not specified in the parent Act, clearly it is necessary to make an extension.
That has been the position in several cases. That is the provision in this case. The provision of this Order is admittedly rather wider than that attempted before, but it has been done so as to obviate the need in future for further Orders for a particular product and so help to speed up bringing new substances within the regulations. That is really the purpose of using this rather obscure form of language, to provide us with this amount of flexibility.
That brings me to the point raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kettering, who was concerned whether those in the "Dog and Duck"—I do not know whether this is in his constituency or not; I am not familiar with his constituency, but I do got his point—and who frequent the ordinary public house will be aware of what legislation is being provided for them. The point is that this Order is a machinery Order. In the regulations we do specify the name of the substance. The regulations give the common name of the substance. This Order will enable Parliament to bring in regulations. I do not think that it is necessary for anyone in the "Dog and Duck" to be familiar with the Order, or with the peculiar phraseology which the hon. and learned Gentleman does not care for. So I think his point is covered, and if those in the "Dog and Duck" study the regulations I do not think that they will have any real difficulty. I am happy to

give the hon. and learned Gentleman that assurance.
It is valuable that both hon. Members who, I think, represent the agricultural workers, have said how they welcomed the regulations. I was very glad indeed to hear that and to know there is close co-operation between their union and my Ministry in what we are seeking to do. As has been said already, that shows the effectiveness of our regulations. This additional power we are taking will provide further opportunity for us to help.
As to whether it is necessary as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sunderland, North hinted, to strengthen the regulations, I think that they are effective at present, but we are always ready to consider any new suggestions which come forward.
I think that I have dealt with most of the points which have been raised on this Order. I am sorry that it is in a rather involved form of words, but I assure hon. Members that the particular substances which we are seeking to protect workers against are well known by their trade names. They will be specified in the regulations and I do not think that there will be any real difficulty here. This is one further step in seeking to safeguard and to help our agriculturists and agricultural workers in what they are doing.
I entirely agree, I say once again, with my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury that if we can get more and more non-toxic sprays we shall all of us be very glad indeed. In the meantime we have to rely to a certain extent on some of these toxic sprays, but in relying on them we do safeguard those concerned in their use, and that is the purpose of this Order. I hope that, with that assurance, the hon. Gentleman will be ready to withdraw his Motion.

Mr. Willey: I am not sure that anything which the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has said will bring any enlightenment to the "Dog and Duck". The hon. Gentleman has been kind enough to give me a diagrammatic document which indicates that it is either 20 to 2 or, alternatively, 10 past 8, neither of which seems relevant to the present Order. I will take the opportunity of studying it later and also what he said


about the atoms holding hands in this bridged six-membered molecule.
We welcome the Order, We thank the Parliamentary Secretary for what he has said and also for the assurance that he

has given that he will keep this question of safety regulations under constant review. For those reasons, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

HOUSING, FULHAM AND HAMMERSMITH

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Legh.]

10.41 p.m.

Mr. Compton Carr: I take this opportunity tonight of saying a very few words about the housing situation in Fulham and Hammersmith, because I am in the happy position of representing a constituency which bridges both these areas.
I do not intend to make any attack or cast any aspersion on either of those local authorities. I do not even intend to say anything which will rouse the anger of the Parliamentary Secretary. But there are some things in Fulham and Hammersmith which, in fact, belong to the whole of London. Fulham and Hammersmith, as constituted at any rate in Barons Court, share all the faults and all the hopes of London in housing. We have flats which are almost luxury flats; we have small, old type working-class dwellings which merely lack amenities to be really habitable again; we have the gently mouldering Victorian premises which London has in abundance; we have very many back and front garden middle-class dwellings, as one might put it, and we also have our quota of slums.
In the two areas we have, of course, as in the rest of London, thousands of people on the housing list. All that can be done for them is literally to rehouse a handful of families—the numbers rehoused can be counted on the fingers of both hands—each year from that list. Something must be done about this. I am sure that the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart), who is in his place, and the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney), who is not present, would agree with me that we cannot at present see our way through the tangle of housing troubles in Fulham and Hammersmith, nor, indeed, anywhere else in London.
I am afraid that people are now reduced to flapping their hands and saying, "Yes, it is certainly true, but what can we do?" Indeed, I have here a letter

from one of the directors of housing in the constituency. I do not propose to disclose which director it is. In his letter dated last month he says:
I agree with you"—
speaking of a case which I had referred to him—
that this is a classic example of overcrowding, but my council does not grant priority for this.
That is not due to hardness of heart in the council. That is a mere statement of fact which has become commonplace today in Fulham and Hammersmith and, again, in the whole of London
All that I ask from the Parliamentary Secretary is that he should give an assurance that this problem will be looked at again.
We are told time and time again that lack of sites is the trouble, yet we in inner London and in the areas to which I have referred still see buildings going up, not, I hasten to say, dwellings but office buildings. I am right behind anyone who wants to clear offices out of the dead centre of London and out of the West End, but I wish that people would now start to look at the periphery, at places which are really dormitory and pour thousands of people into the centre of the city daily, and seek to draw on those sources of labour. This would help the housing situation in central London and help people on the outskirts of London to make more out of their weekly wage packets instead of having to spend large sums on travel.
Yet we in Hammersmith and Fulham still see these buildings going up. There is one 30 storeys high on the Fulham side, and there are others all round Hammersmith Broadway. There is still need for office property of one kind or another, but I am sure that I speak for everybody in these two boroughs when I say that it is not right to pull down habitable houses in order to build offices. It is not right that sites completely open for redevelopment should be used for this type of building. Some way round this problem must be found. I ask that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary should give me, and through me the thousands of people who will read his words, some hope of being rehoused somewhere in central London.
I think that again the hon. Member for Fulham will bear me out in saying that we are not surrounded in our constituencies by people who are determined to cling to the parental perch and will not move out of Fulham or Hammersmith. We are faced with people who do not know where to go. Many of them say, "I am in a job which I can take up anywhere, but where can I get a house?". A man will say, "I can get a £15 a week job, which is £1 more than I am getting. It is out in the country where money will go further, but I cannot go there because my wife and children cannot join me for at least six months." This is not merely a London problem. A solution would help people to get out of London as well as help people to live in London.
I feel that we underestimate the younger family man. He is able to save. I hope that the hon. Member for Fulham will forgive my mentioning him so often, but he is a neighbour of mine and I am dealing with a borough which he knows a great deal better than even I do. He will know, and I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will agree, for he also knows the area, that there are large numbers of young family men in our constituencies. There are large numbers of men who are able to save singularly large sums even during their married life, and I sometimes wonder how they do it. They say, "I want a house", and when I say, "You have not much hope of a council house", they reply, "No, but I have saved £300." One is full of admiration for any young man with a family who today can save £300. We used to decry young men for not saving during their engagement period a sum of money to spend on obtaining a house. Now they can save but they cannot find any place on which to spend their savings. That is a grave difficulty which my constituents have to face.
Many of them do not know about opportunities for obtaining mortgages. In any case, many of them have incomes which are just on the borderline. They may be earning only the national average of £12 or £13 a week, and if they have young families, they are not very acceptable to most building societies, and it is not every local authority which is prepared to grant mortgages, let alone

large mortgages of 90 or 100 per cent. Some of these youngsters are tied to these horrible single rooms and to the sort of places I have mentioned. I know of a young couple who have been on the housing waiting list for twelve years in one of these boroughs. They are living in a place which has the toilet in the yard and they are compressed into two or three small rooms.
Those are the sort of people for whom I am seeking some words of hope. It is not sufficient to say that they must do something themselves. I do not want to be political about this, and there is a subject which I hesitate to mention, but in fact I feel that rent rebate schemes ought to be considered by every council in London. In that I have the support of a very prominent constituent of mine, Mr. Morgan Phillips, and the Daily Herald. That is one of the ways to help, but it is not the only way.
I should like my hon. Friend's comments on one or two suggestions, I should like to see overcrowding byelaws taken in hand. We should now start laying down conditions about crowding, so that not so many people can be crowded into spaces so small. If that were done, people intending to come to London would find that there was nowhere for them to live and they would then not come—and at the moment they are still pouring in. The question of sites should also be carefully studied.
Another suggestion concerns a word which in other places would be considered dirty, but which is not out of order here—densities. It is a word which is not regarded with favour in some places. I am sure that we have to increase densities until they bear some relation to the facts and to the actual numbers of people living in areas.
I also wish that we could have some genuine move towards building upwards in this city. I know that that is a very touchy subject, but I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give some encouragement to local authorities to do something constructive about helping young and old people—I know that old people are already being helped through the subsidies—so that they can live in decent conditions instead of squalor in an area of London which they and I regard with the very greatest affection.

10.54 p.m.

Mr. Michael Stewart: I intervene only very briefly to say that I listened to the hon. Member for Barons Court (Mr. Compton Carr) with interest. It seemed to me that at one time the direction in which his argument was pointing was that to make it easier for people who wanted to get out of London and make their homes elsewhere the Government must look again at the question of new towns and encourage the L.C.C. in the building of its new towns and the expansion of new towns generally.
In view of the situation in Fulham, all of us in Fulham are surprised by the Minister's recent decision not to confirm a scheme which the borough council has in hand in the northern part of the borough. The refusal was motivated, I understand, by the belief that there ought to be more provision for middle-class housing. I recognise that all classes have their housing problems, but in the main the problem in Fulham is one of people of about average-sized income, and I am bound to say that the Minister's decision is very hard to understand or to justify in Fulham.

10.56 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): This is an unusual though short debate, in as much as all three hon. Members who are taking part in it have an intimate knowledge of the area under discussion. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barons Court (Mr. Compton Carr) on the very clear and cogent, yet moderate, way in which he spoke of what is a continuing and very serious problem.
My right hon. Friend said in the debate on London housing in June, 1959, that he regards overcrowding as the most serious single housing problem left in London, and I assure my hon. Friend that this problem is very much in the Minister's mind. Although my hon. Friend cannot, perhaps, perceive it month by month or even year by year, I should like to tell him, and through him the citizens of the two boroughs of which he spoke, that overcrowding, though still serious, is less than it was. The annual figures of the Registrar-General show that there has been an annual decline of about 1 per cent. in the population of

both Fulham and Hammersmith and that over the last nine years there has been a fall of about 10,000 in each of those two boroughs.
This is masked to the ordinary inhabitant by the constant sight of new faces coming into the area which nearly, but not quite, replace those which have left, and there is an impression of an increasing population because people see the newcomers but of course do not see those who have left. These figures are, I think, reliable, and they show this falling population. It is interesting, although I admit not definitive, that the Medical Officer of Health for Fulham did not even mention overcrowding in his last annual report. The Medical Officer of Health for Hammersmith listed 212 households which in his view suffered from overcrowding, and I think we can be sure that if he listed those, then there are a large number he would like to list as overcrowding if we could permit higher standards to be maintained. I accept the comment of the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) that if we are to tackle overcrowding there must be adequate provision for overspill outside London.
The waiting lists to which my hon. Friend referred are still large, but not enormous. In Fulham the figures are 2,500 and in Hammersmith 1,700. The densities of which he speaks are constantly in the minds of all concerned with housing. They flow in London from the L.C.C. development plan. The L.C.C. five-yearly review, which is before my right hon. Friend, increases the densities in certain parts of London, although not in these two areas. It must be remembered, however, that an increase in densities seldom produces a dramatic effect in itself, because the more people in any area the more provision there must be for schools and open places.
I assure my hon. Friend that every effort is being made to reduce the number of offices and works in central London. We and the L.C.C. are constantly trying to steer industry and offices to the peripheral areas of which my hon. Friend spoke. As I am sure he recognises, there is pressure for new offices, and if there is an area such as that to which he referred, where a site lies between an exhibition hall and a coal yard, where


there has always been some sort of industrial use, it can be argued that it is more suitable for offices than for housing. But I assure my hon. Friend that every site is considered on its merits, with an incentive towards moving offices to areas which are not much troubled with offices already.
The heart of the housing provision for a conurbation such as London is to get some movement of tenancies. It is the continuing tenancies, where tenants stay on and on, long after they need that kind of accommodation, which stop people who require housing from getting it.
There are several ways in which local authorities can help. I should like to list three. The first is by paying particular attention to the increasing number of elderly householders. My hon. Friend referred to this. They can do this not only by new building for the elderly, which both Fulham and Hammersmith are doing, on the limited amount of empty sites, but also by converting large houses for the use of the elderly. I draw this to their attention for priority consideration.
The second thing local authorities can do is to adopt sensible rent policies. It has now become common ground that if all houses are offered by a local authority at bargain basement prices, with no account taken of the income of the tenant, there is no incentive to those who can afford to look after themselves to move out and make way for those who cannot help themselves because they have not enough income and are just left on the waiting list.
As my hon. Friend mentioned, some time ago Hammersmith took an excellent and admirable initiative in starting a rent rebate scheme. One could cavil at the fact that the scheme has not been revised since it was set up. Perhaps the figures on which it is based are slightly out-moded by the rise in earnings which has occurred, but I should like to pay tribute to Hammersmith's initiative, vigour and bravery in putting forward this proposal and carrying it through against a good deal of opposition. This is a policy which should be adopted by all local authorities.
The third thing to which I should like to draw the attention of local authorities

is a vigorous policy to reduce under-occupation by means of transfers. The trend towards smaller families which the whole nation is revealing means that there is a danger of under-occupation if families are allowed, without any persuasion by local authorities, to remain under-occupying accommodation that they no longer need.
It is true that in London there is just not enough empty land to permit local authorities to neglect these weapons. Fulham and Hammersmith both have a considerable building programme this year. Fulham is building about 350 houses, and Hammersmith about 83. Many of these houses will be wanted for occupants of houses which are slums or which have to be pulled down to make way for road improvements, schools, or the like.
Re-lets are absolutely vital. Up till now, re-lets, however many have been achieved, have had to be used to a large extent to look after the de-requisitioning problem. That problem is now behind the boroughs of London in most cases, and certainly in Fulham and Hammersmith. Therefore, the re-lets which occur will be available to help the waiting list. This should make a very considerable difference.
Here a surprising contrast emerges. Hammersmith and Fulham have about the same quantity of housing. Both have between 3,000 and 3,500 dwellings. Yet the number of re-lets made by the boroughs in a year is surprisingly different. I cannot give an interpretation of this. Hammersmith has about 350 re-lets per annum, which is about 10 per cent. and well above the national average. Thus, Hammersmith is able to help 350 households a year from its waiting list or from desperately overcrowded conditions which, with a waiting list of 1,700, is a very sizable slice.
Fulham says that it has only about 30 re-lets a year. I find this figure surprisingly low. It is about 1 per cent. of the dwellings. Perhaps the figure will be revised. Even if it is revised to a certain degree, there will still be a very large gap between the number of re-lets in neighbouring boroughs. I wish that I knew the reason. Perhaps there is a reason which does not help us forward, but there is that extraordinary contrast.
With the building programme limited by the availability of sites, re-lets play a very important part in serving the waiting list. With the number of re-lets Hammersmith seems to have, it should rapidly overtake its present waiting list.
I point out to my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Fulham that the boroughs for which they speak are popular boroughs and there will be a flood of new people coming in so next year, the year after and in ten years' time the waiting list will be just as large, but I hope that it will be composed of quite different people.
The fact that both boroughs revise their waiting list each year means that they tend to have actual waiting lists and not frozen, unrealistic waiting lists accumulated from long ago. These two boroughs are popular. Largely because of that, and the availability of work, they are overcrowded, but sizably less overcrowded each year, despite any impression to the contrary. The fact that the nation's population is now breaking into smaller households means that this reduced population has much the same demand, in terms of householders, as the larger population had but, within households, there is less overcrowding because of the smaller number of people in the households to be housed each year.
I have tried to indicate that action on all fronts is necessary, and that in nearly all oases action on all fronts is occurring; that is, facilitating the moving out by providing room by overspill, and by the surge in housebuilding that we know has occurred; by facilitating the better use of accommodation by building and converting for the elderly, for the convenience of the elderly and, at the same

time, releasing family dwellings for the families who need them; by having sensible rent policies that encourage those who can look after themselves to move out and so make room for these on the waiting list; and by converting, improving, and building wherever possible. By those means, I believe, both boroughs are trying to help their waiting lists, and, to a large extent, are succeeding.
Behind the picture of the waiting lists there is, in fact, a rapidly changing population. Although my hon. Friend has produced individual cases of people who have been a long time on the waiting list, I believe that those are, in fact, individual cases. The waiting lists take into account, in their points system, the time on the waiting list. I understand that Hammersmith does—but as my hon. Friend shakes his head I shall look into the position again. However, I believe that, in human terms, the problem is being solved rather more quickly than he indicates. Whilst I agree that overcrowding is a very serious, and, in individual cases, often a tragic situation, I can assure my hon. Friend and the House that my right hon. Friend has the solution of this very much in his mind.

Mr. M. Stewart: Will the Parliamentary Secretary say anything about the Minister's refusal to confirm the order?

Sir K. Joseph: I hope the hon. Gentleman will excuse me on this occasion. I am not in a position to answer him on that.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eight minutes past Eleven o'clock.